


Iron Maiden

by ourwinko



Category: NCT (Band), WayV (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space Opera, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Hunters, Angst, Based on the Warhammer 40K Universe, Character Death, Gothic, Grimdark Fantasy, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, M/M, Science Fiction
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-25
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:20:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 34,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24908272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ourwinko/pseuds/ourwinko
Summary: Ten knows nothing but murder. Nothing but death. The Inquisition has trained, engineered, and turned him into an unstoppable killing machine — and now he wants out. Clearly, being everyone’s favorite witch hunter has its perks, because when Ten calls, a certain Johnny Seo answers, and it’s the two of them against the universe.
Relationships: Chittaphon Leechaiyapornkul | Ten/Suh Youngho | Johnny, Jung Yoonoh | Jaehyun/Lee Taeyong
Comments: 24
Kudos: 38





	1. I

**Author's Note:**

> This work will, of course, have johnten as the main pairing, and will include jaeyong and yuwin at the side later on.
> 
> Be warned that this work will include a lot of violence, a lot of blood, a lot of severed limbs. Have fun!

**950.41 (950th year of the 40th Millenium)** _Concord, Segmentum Ultima_

Ten has always had his eyes at the stars. As a young boy, he wanted nothing more than to get his feet off the radioactive ground of his homeworld and jump on the nearest void ship heading to Holy Terra: the center of human civilization in the known universe and the God Emperor’s seat of power. Ten’s greatest dream was to sail among the vast endlessness of space, where the most titanic creations of humanity are but ants among the ever expanding threshold of the universe, inconsequential compared to the infinite possibilities that lie among the stars. Ten had dreamt of cruising through the Immaterium, the dimension with which one can jump from star system to star system in mere moments rather than lightyears.

Back then, what lay beyond was filled with every hope, dream and wonder Ten could have conceived in his young mind. However, life has a tendency to ruin the purest of intentions, and Ten has come to learn that space is just a collection of all these planets and galaxies linked together in a chain of infinite torment. Everywhere he goes, there is suffering, and soon all his hopes were torn apart, all his dreams were turned to ash, and wonder turned into resentment.

Ten has learned the hard way that only two kinds of people can survive in this life. Only two kinds of people can make it without being exploited, manipulated, monopolized and enslaved.

The ones in power, and the ones who kill for those in power.

It doesn’t take much to guess which one Ten is.

“Ten to command, I’m in position."

Night has fallen on the planet of Concord. It’s the perfect hour to kill.

“Copy. Await further instructions.”

Concord is picturesque. It is sophistication at its finest, and complexes of government and residential buildings run on for miles and miles, characterized by exceptionally beautiful architecture reminiscent of an ancient bygone era. Concord is all frescoes and pillars and marble statues, and Ten thinks he’d enjoy a walk through these streets, if only to admire the architecture and beauty.

The breeze is cool from where Ten is perched atop a tower, cat-like eyes honing in on his target below him, a seemingly normal temple of sorts whose concrete was crumbling at the corners, its mosaic windows growing mold at the edges. 

His mission is simple: eliminate a coven of unsanctioned psykers and retrieve a group of psychic children. 

His auspex reveals several dozen signatures from within the temple, red beeping dots, marked for execution any moment now. 

“Command to Ten,” says the monotone voice in his ear, cutting through brief static. “The operation is a go.”

With that, Ten leaps into action, his insane muscular strength propelling him from the tower top to the roofs of buildings below. The air is stark and cold as he makes his descent, increasingly becoming unnaturally colder the closer he gets to the temple. Each step, each calculated bounce off of gilded concrete, is silent as the subtle night, each move he makes swift, his form undetectable like the darkest of shadows. With one final jump, he glides through the air and breaks through one of the temple’s mosaic windows. 

The moment the stained glass crashes to the floor, and the moment Ten’s feet hit the ground, five things happen in quick succession. 

One, with his left hand, he unholsters his bolt pistol within the blink of an eye. Two, with his right hand, he unlatches a grenade from his hip and with a quick flick of his thumb, he arms it. Three, he empties a magazine on the mercenaries around him, twelve bullets each finding their mark. Four, as if running behind by a second, only now does the enemy realize what’s happening, and they bring their lasguns up to fire at the assassin in their midst. Five, Ten hurls the grenade at the remaining enemies, their attempts at escape pointless as the subsequent explosion resounds with a deafening roar of finality, silencing all resistance as the smoke and dust settles in its wake.

Bodies are littered all around Ten, and blood colors the ground in thick puddles, flowing unabated from gaping holes left by the assassin’s bolter rounds and from the gruesome gashes of detached limbs.

Ten saunters over the bodies with practiced grace, careful not to soak his boot’s soles in blood. He reloads another magazine into his pistol as he walks toward a door that leads further into the temple. 

Ten throws the door open with a forceful arm, and Ten finds himself in a dark hallway. With swift fingers he slides on his thermal goggles, and at once his vision shifts into green and grey. 

He spots a figure as he turns to his left, seemingly dressed in flowing robes, obscured head littered with psychical implants. 

It takes Ten barely a second to raise his gun up and fire several rounds at the frantic figure, and as expected, his bullets are stopped in mid air by a blue, glowing barrier of psychic energy. The psyker discards the bullets with relative ease, the metal rounds falling to the ground with successive clinks. 

The psyker then sends a torrent of blue lightning crackling towards Ten, who brings up his wrist to counter, letting his adamantium gauntlet absorb the full force of the blow. The lightning collides with the metal of his gauntlet with such force that Ten’s cloak billows erratically behind him, the soles of his boots dragging heavily against the brick floor.

The lightning stops, and the skin under Ten’s gauntlet ceases to tingle as well. 

Ten could audibly hear the psyker’s heavy panting, a result of the sheer weight of his powers weighing heavily on him. The psyker’s magic, as it seems, has done more damage to himself than to Ten. 

Ten takes this opportunity to unholster the mace on his back. 

See, Ten is no mere assassin.

He’s an Inquisitor of the Ordo Hereticus. In normal speech, that means he’s a witch hunter. Being a galactic witch hunter also means he has exclusive access to the most extensive arsenal of witch-hunting weaponry that the Imperium could offer, purifying maces included. 

The mace crackles with electricity in his hand, and with the speed of a feline, Ten closes the distance between him and his prey.

With a swift upwards swipe of the mace, its spiked head collides with the psyker’s chin, bashing his face into the back of his skull with frightening ease. The loud crack of fractured facial bones echoes off the walls, and the psyker instantly crumples to the ground, a squelching sound resounding as his brain spills out into the floor. With a quick look around, Ten checks to see if no one else is in the hallway but him, and sure enough it’s deserted. 

He continues down the hallway until he comes face to face with an ornately decorated wooden door, its surface abundant with elaborate carvings that Ten takes a second to admire. Then he kicks it open with the heel of his boot, and the wood splinters backward into the mostly empty room.

A half-lit chandelier hangs overhead, and a woman with a staff stands right below it. The waning fire of the chandelier casts an eerie glow upon the mid-sized room. 

“Witch hunter,” she spits, and the fire in her eyes reminds Ten of twin bright suns.

“Witch,” Ten replies, the word slipping off his tongue with disinterested acknowledgment. 

“You will not pa-“ 

Her words are cut off by a single gunshot, a bolter round piercing straight through her abdomen. The round buries itself in the wall on the opposite side of the room with a metallic clink. The witch gasps in pain as she’s forced to kneel to the ground, doubling over from the sting of her wound.

“The children. Where are they?” Ten asks, stooping down to the witch’s level if only to grab her by the chin with leather-gloved hands, forcing her eyes to stare into his. “I’ll only ask once.” 

“Fuck you.”

“Suit yourself.” 

Ten stands up and levels his bolt pistol at her forehead, and with a single pull of the trigger, there’s one dot less on his auspex. Her body falls against the ground with a dull thud, blood soaking the lengths of her auburn hair. Even in death, her golden eyes stare up at him with unmasked disdain. As she slumps against the brick floor, a necklace slips from within the depths of her clothing, a name engraved on the pendant: _Yongsun._

An inconsequential name. Only one of thousands that befell the same fate, with the same gun pointed at their heads. Now, they’re all forgotten. 

Ten’s auspex leads him to a basement below the temple, where as expected, a dozen children cower together in the farthest wall, their obnoxious whimpers an amalgamation of grating, unpleasant sounds that made Ten want to cut off his own ears.

“Hush, darlings,” he says, the term of endearment lacking all sweetness, and the children can only find terror, not comfort, in his words. “Crying will do you no good now.”

After all, who wouldn’t be scared of a man clad in all black, with a studded and chained coat beneath which multiple weapons were hidden away, heavy boots that thud against the ground with each step, and a wide-brimmed hat that cast his face in perpetual gloom. Not to mention the imposing mace in his hand that he had just used to kill their guardians. Ten would be scared senseless too.

Several owlish eyes blink at him with unconcealed curiosity, and some others refuse to even look at him at all, their eyes shut so tight they crinkled at the corners.

“Ten to command. Location is secured, the threats have been neutralized. Tell the Arbites that the psychic children are ready for pick-up.” 

There’s a brief period of silence before Ten gets his reply.

“Change of plans today, Ten. The Arbites will not be coming for pick-up. You are to neutralize the children as well. We await your compliance.”

Ten pauses. He’s killed before, yes, he’s done it so many times that murder is second nature to him by this point. He’s killed rogue priests, witches, heretics before, but never _children._ He may be a killer by trade but certainly not a monster.

“Command, is this not against protocol? Psychic children are to be retrieved and sent to trials for the Schola Progenia.” They are meant to be given a chance, a chance to learn and live through study and craft at the Imperium’s schools. It is what is _right._ “Who authorized this?”

“The Representative authorized this. Failure to do so will result in _Excommunicate Traitoris._ It is the Emperor’s will, and his will be done. We await your compliance.”

Ten wants nothing more than to tear out his earpiece and ignore the abhorrent monotone voice speaking into his ear, and yet he recognizes that there would be no point, that there is no choice, that in a life like this he doesn’t get the luxury of being kind and decent.

He swallows the bile coming up his throat, pushes down the diabolical feeling throwing up a storm in his gut. 

“For the Emperor,” Ten says, voice a shapeless whisper.

He loads a magazine into his bolter.

-

 **951.41, One Year Later** _Holy Terra, Segmentum Solar_

Ten has always had a proclivity for the cold. Something about completely and utterly surrendering to the stark chill that worked its way under your skin appeals to him, calms him more than anything else, and while ice baths remain a complete mystery in regard to how exactly they’re supposed to be helpful, Ten doesn’t think indulging in one every once in a while is particularly harmful.

Ten holds his breath as he pushes himself down beneath the waterline of his bathtub, beneath the cubes of ice floating on the surface, and just lets himself be. 

It’s thrilling almost. Your body is forced to adapt to this sudden change in temperature, and your breathing becomes erratic, your skin prickles, and your senses fade away into frosty numbness. It’s unbelievably cold until you get used to it, until the freeze is just a chill, until the chill is just a dull sensation, amplified by every pulse of your heartbeat, but completely negligible in the pauses between.

Ten feels his lungs constrict, and he spares himself a few more seconds under the water before he rises above the surface.

His hair mats his forehead, every inch of exposed skin apprehensive to the chilly air. Ten drags himself out of the tub with relative ease, feet coming into contact with the fine marble of his bathroom’s floor, water dripping off of him with a steady pitter-patter. With a lithe hand he pulls a towel from a nearby rack, and with easy motions he dries the remnants of cold moisture on his skin. 

The distant melody of an ancient rock song streams in through the open bathroom door, most of the song being nigh-imperceptible save for the steady beat of the percussion. Ten lets himself get lost in the distorted voice of a middle-aged man and his distinct rasp, lets himself wallow in the explosive riffs of an electric guitar as he stares at his bare body in the mirror.

Ten has an amazing body, objectively speaking, and he’s proud of it. He’s well-sculpted, muscular in the right areas, toned and figured. He’s worked hard on it, and he imagines it’d be perfect if it weren’t for the abundance of scars littering every expanse of his skin. 

Among the scars, a long-ago dried up gash on his thigh from a nasty alien swordsman. A browned bullet hole on his shoulder, never really fully healed. Slits on his wrist. Burn marks on his arm. A wound on his stomach. Scratches on his neck. Permanent scrapes on his knee. At this point, the only part of his body left without a lesion of some sort is his face. 

Ten blinks at himself in the mirror, sitting atop a stool. The greyed daylight streams in through the window on the far wall, casting a dull light on Ten and his scarred body.

Ten runs his fingers over his newest scars, purpling bruises on his forearm from a mission whose details had already skipped his mind. He wraps it over with a roll of bandage always present on the vanity, wrapping until the purple patches have been covered up by nude-colored strips. 

He ventures out of the bathroom and into his room, where his clothes lay waiting for him atop his bed. He dresses himself in his undergarment of cotton, his well-fitting pair of trousers, his boots, and his black cloak that’s been with him through all his hells and highs. The final addition to his fit is a pair of audiosets that he tucks around his ears, so that the loudness of Terra’s hustle and bustle is drowned out by his equally loud and intense choice of music.

He spares himself a brief look in the mirror before taking his hat off the rack, nestling it atop his head as he makes his way out the door. A watch sits around his wrist, more for keeping him updated on missions than time, and right now a bright notification glares back at Ten from the display.

_You are being summoned to the Inquisitorial Lodge on Holy Terra._

Inquisitors are often scattered throughout the galaxy, persecuting and hunting at the hours of the day that they don’t devote to tending to their battlescars or researching and investigating a heretic to be marked for death. In fact, in Ten’s decade-long career in the Inquisition, he’s only ever met one other inquisitor, and even that person is someone he hasn’t seen in a long time. Thus, Ten’s curiosity is justifiable when the Inquisition’s top brass has summoned him for a meeting, one whose details remain undisclosed even as he makes his way up the steps of the Lodge.

The Inquisitorial Lodge is supposed to appear deceiving. After all, it serves as the sanctum of the Imperium’s most secretive of branches. As such, its facade is entirely too hospitable, as if daemon-slayers and witch-hunters didn’t roam its halls, as if its rooms weren’t filled with weapons that could melt metal and dismember bodies in seconds. Massive pillars held up its front exterior, almost reminiscent of a grand library of sorts. Of this guise, the building lives up to, because when Ten pushes open the doors of dark wood, a dimly-lit library is what faces him.

He feasts his eyes upon rows and rows of dozen-meter high shelves, cast aglow in an eerie yellow by massive chandeliers whose light don’t quite seem to reach the ground. In the center of it all, tucked behind a desk filled with files and paper, typing away at an ancient typewriter that was there more for aesthetic than function, is a man whose round glasses sit at the edge of his nose. Ten wants nothing more than to push the silver-rimmed spectacles back up to the cradle between his eyes. 

“Taeil,” Ten greets. He attempts to sound pleased to see the meek receptionist, rare are the times they get to see each other after all. He only gets a brief glance in reply. “Been a long time, hasn’t it?”

Taeil hums in a noncommittal manner. “Are you here for an acquisition?”

“Yes, I am,” Ten feels his lips turning up in a small smile. It’s nice to know that Taeil is still professional, still so unbelievably indifferent even when face to face with a friend he hasn’t seen in ages. Ten respects that.

Taeil briefly pushes his glasses up his nose. “The book’s identification number, please.” 

“Ten.”

“State your decree and purpose.”

Taeil’s hands pause over the keys of the typewriter as he waits for Ten to speak. 

“A heretic may see the truth and seek redemption. He may be forgiven his past and be absolved in death. A Traitor can never be forgiven. A Traitor can never find peace in this world or the next. There is nothing as wretched or as hated in all the world as a Traitor. _”_ Ten utters these words like they’re a nursery rhyme, a decree that’s been imprinted into his mind ever since he was a trainee. He swears by these words like they’re a sacred creed, and yet now they roll off his tongue with prosaic bitterness. “I’ve been summoned by a Lord Inquisitor.”

Taeil finishes typing his file and resets the typewriter’s bar back to where it should be when a blank page is in the cartridge. He promptly stores the file in a folder, sliding it among the color-coded ranks of a distant cabinet. Taeil crosses his hands one over the other, and for the first time in the entirety of their interaction, he looks Ten in the eye for longer than a millisecond.

“You know where to go,” Taeil says, giving the inquisitor a wry smile, as if to say ‘ _It’s good to see you’_ without really saying anything at all. Then, the smile is gone, and he returns to inputting data on his typewriter as his glasses start sliding back down the curve of his nose. 

Ten strides past the receptionist’s desk, making his way down the central aisle, eyes focused on the door that awaits him at the far end. 

The Lodge has always been quiet, has always seemed to be stuck in its own tiny bubble, separate from the world outside its walls. It appears to be stuck in time, as if nothing moves and nothing lives and nothing breathes among its abundance of books and shelves, and it's also as if nothing really ages in here at all. Ten remembers the last time he was here, a vague, greyed memory sitting in the corner of his mind. While that memory has shifted and degraded into something barely recognizable in his head, the wood of the shelves are polished as ever, the carpets not sporting the barest hint of dust or dirt. 

When he pushes the door open, it opens up to a cage-like contraption that can only be described as an elevator. The sterile light overhead bathes the small space in drowsy light as it descends into the deeper levels of Holy Terra, the levels unexposed to the surface, where the machinations and inner workings of the Imperium are conducted in unending business. 

The lift stops with an abrupt rattle, and the doors give a hydraulic hiss as it opens. 

He’s greeted with another sparsely-lit room, with three doors on each side. All black wood, all heavy-looking, as if it’d take a strong arm to wrest open. Each door was heavily decorated, ornate and elaborate, with an abundance of images and carvings on the surface that symbolizes what kind of assassin lies behind each door.

To the left, a door filled with the disembodied faces of a litany of alien species, mouths agape in an eternal scream. Above it, the words _Ordo Xenos,_ the alien hunters. In the center, a ram stares back at Ten, its horns curled and studded, the centerpiece of a vile red pentagram. _Ordo Malleus,_ the daemon hunters. To the right, and the only door Ten has had the honor of opening, sports the head of a decapitated psyker. _Ordo Hereticus,_ the witch hunters.

Ten opens the door to the right, and the labyrinth of hallways that he’s faced with would’ve been impossible to navigate if it were his first time, but Ten’s been here enough times in the past to find his way straight to the meeting room, where two figures in similar fashion await him behind a table. 

“You couldn’t have dipped into the funds to get some better lighting in here?” Ten says in greeting, dragging the only unoccupied chair out from under the table so he could leisurely sit upon it. He takes off his hat, laxly discarding it on the tabletop. “I was under the impression that I was being summoned by one Lord Inquisitor, not two.”

“It’s a special occasion,” Kibum says, the familiar drawl streaming like honey into Ten’s ears. “You’re in a bit of a situation, Tennie.”

“What situation?” Ten is honestly not sure what to expect, because if you were to ask him, he’d say that he’s been in a situation for _years_ now. 

“I’ll get straight to the point,” says Taemin, his soft tone carrying a great deal of weight. “You’ve been tasked to kill one of our own.”

“Alright,” Ten says. That should be easy. It won’t be the first time he’s had to weed out traitors from within their ranks. “Who?”

Taemin and Kibum share an odd look, and Ten is about to verbally abuse them for all their theatrics before Taemin speaks. 

“Seo Youngho,” Taemin says, and Ten’s blood runs cold. “You may know him as Johnny? I understand that you have history.”

“Yes,” Ten says, not quite present as he loses himself in his head. “I guess you could call it that. History.”

If history was Johnny, the only man Ten has ever loved, then yes. Johnny is history.

-

There’s a difference between a killer and an inquisitor.

A killer is many things. Untrained, unrefined. Raw and tactless, spurned on purely by the desire to spill blood. A killer is rash, with no method to his actions, no thought, no planning. A killer kills for satisfaction, for vengeance, for personal gain, but what a killer is not, is an assassin. An inquisitor is learned and practiced, well-versed in the most gruesome ways of death. An inquisitor has mastered the art of murder, the art of killing. An inquisitor’s every move is calculated, and every facet of the inquisitor’s surroundings is accounted for. The slightest change in the environment sets off red flags in the inquisitor's head.

The slightest change, like the pattern of a shoe print that was certainly not Ten’s, etched onto the carpet of Ten’s own home, otherwise invisible to the untrained eye.

Ten takes off his audiosets, pocketing them in one of his coat’s many compartments. He’s under-armed today, no mace, no pistol, only a small knife concealed within his boot.

Time seems to freeze as Ten attempts to figure this situation out. He realizes four things:

  1. Holy Terra is home to only the Imperium’s denizens, and it is fiercely guarded by legions of soldiers on the ground and not to mention, the impassable armada in orbit, which means that;
  2. If there is an assassin in his home, only the Imperium itself could have sent them. 
  3. Ten knows his own worth enough that there are only two people in the entire galaxy who the Imperium knows can put up a fight with someone like him.
  4. One of them disappeared long ago. 



Ten’s eyes follow the footprints, trailing off into the bathroom.

“Lee Taeyong, I’m giving you this chance to show yourself and keep your dignity or I’ll kill you where you stand.” 

True to Ten’s suspicions, the bathroom door opens with a light creak, and out comes the guilty. Taeyong regards him with an amused look, brandishing a Crossbow-Pattern bolter in his hand. 

“You’re no fun,” Taeyong says, complete with a deceptive pout. “You didn’t even give us a chance to give your little home a long-overdue makeover. I’d be more than happy to give you an excuse to replace your abhorrent carpet.”

“Why are you here?”

“Can’t an old friend pay you a visit?” Taeyong asks, putting his crossbow on a nearby coffee table. 

Ten raises an eyebrow. Taeyong sighs.

“Would you by any chance have some wine?”

“Whiskey,” Ten says, feet already leading him to the pantry.

“That’ll do.”

-

“You seem well, Ten.” Taeyong says as Ten re-enters the living room, a far-off look in the former’s eyes as he stares into his glass of golden brown liquid. “It’s good to see you.”

“That’s rich of you. It’s the first time we’re seeing each other in years and it’s only because you’ve been sent to kill me.” Ten doesn’t bother taking a seat. Instead he leans against the wall opposite from where Taeyong is sitting. “Last time I checked, you were a daemon hunter. Unless I’ve been tainted without my knowledge you have no reason to be here right now.”

“To be fair, _I_ wasn’t sent to kill you. I haven’t received a mission assignment in years, actually,” Taeyong says, voice quiet. “But the point still stands. There’s been a bounty, per se, put on your head.”  
  
“By who?”

“Inquisition,” Taeyong says, regarding Ten with a questioning look. Ten squirms uncomfortably. “They’ve issued what might as well be an order for your execution to the inquisitor lords. I came here to warn you, if anything. I know you can take care of yourself but it’d be disagreeable of me if I didn’t at least check up on you. I still care about you even after all this time, believe it or not.”

“Is that why you’ve been ignoring me the past few years?”

Taeyong winces.

“You can dismiss this as a pointless excuse, but I tried to reach out to you, I really did. They stationed me on a _void_ _ship_ in the Segmentum Obscura. I tried to get a hold of you so many times, but the Astronomican, something’s wrong with it. The Imperium is destabilizing, not only from within, but in every sense of the word. We’re losing contact with outer worlds, and entire systems are being cut off from the rest of the Imperium. There are talks in the upper echelons of Imperium hierarchy, they think something dark and unfathomable is at bay. But that’s a story for another time,” Taeyong says, downing the rest of his wine. “After I received word of the bounty on your head, I decided to sift through the Inquisition database. They’ve sent you to kill Johnny. Why?”

Ten sighs. “I don’t know. I did my research, Johnny’s been on the battlefield all these years, his track record is spotless. There’s no valid reason for him to be killed just like that, and what’s throwing me off is that they’re sending _me_ to deal with it. Johnny is a commissar, a member of the Imperial Guard. Guard cases are handled by the Arbites, not the Inquisition.”

“Then it’s not about him,” Taeyong deduces, voice taking on a foreboding tone. “It’s about you. I’ve heard of this happening before, just hearsay and rumors, but this proves my suspicions. Ten, have you done anything, _anything_ at all that could make the Inquisition question your loyalty to the Imperium?”

“What, you’re saying I’m being branded as a traitor?”

“Answer the question.”

Ten falters, words stuck in his throat. His mind doubles back to that day a year ago, where he was forced to kill children for no apparent reason at all. The sight of the aftermath has plagued every single one of his dreams the night since, and the images flash into his head right now.

“I… I may have hesitated _once_ , but I still followed through with it. That should be more than enough testament to my loyalty, shouldn’t it?”

Taeyong sighs. “Oh, Ten. There’s a difference between loyalty and servitude, and the moment you shift to the second, the Inquisition comes after you like rabid dogs. You know how it is, unconditional loyalty or nothing at all. They obviously know about your history with Johnny, and whether or not the Inquisition will let you back in its good graces depends on if you kill Johnny or let him live.”

“Well, shit.” 

“My sentiments exactly,” Taeyong chuckles, the sound deep and half-hearted. There’s a period of silence that follows. “Did you… Did you really think I came here to kill you? You know I could never bring myself to hurt you, Ten.”

Ten meets Taeyong’s gaze, and the former is surprised to find genuine hurt in the inquisitor lord’s eyes. Taeyong has always communicated with his eyes. If some people wore their heart on their sleeves, Taeyong had his heart in his eyes. Ten walks over to where Taeyong is sitting and situates himself beside him, sitting close enough that Ten could hear Taeyong’s each draw of breath.

“You’re an inquisitor, Taeyong. You would kill anyone if you see any reason to.” Ten presses a kiss onto Taeyong’s temple, and the other man seems to instinctively lean into his warmth. “Besides, you were hiding in my _bathroom_ , what else was I supposed to think?”

Taeyong laughs, genuine and full this time, and the air in the room dies down to a soft calmness. Ten rather likes it.

“I’ve missed you,” Taeyong says. “I never realized how lonely this life could get.”

“You and me both.” Ten lays his head on Taeyong’s shoulder, closing his eyes as the weariness of the years prior settles in the moment he makes intimate contact with another person. 

“What are you going to do now? You’ve always managed to get yourself in the most precarious situations. I’d call it a talent at this point.”

“I don’t know either,” Ten says, then an idea presents itself in his head, and right now, it’s the most appealing course of action. “Maybe I’ll visit an old friend of ours. Say, have you heard from Doie lately?”

-

Holy Terra lives to but a half of its name. It may be Terra, but it certainly is not Holy. The Emperor may reside upon his golden throne, hidden away behind the mythic Eternity Gate, but even his presence isn’t enough to stop the festering maladies brooding in the depths of his Holy Terra.

Bureaucrats, ministers, government officials and all those with any semblance of power and ambition for glory conduct their business here in the shadows. Holy Terra is a place where most of every death is caused by some shady political plot, a place where the scales of power tip and stutter between balance and instability, a place where the webs of deception are woven with each passing moment, and only the most ambitious, most cutthroat, most ruthless survive. 

It takes a special kind of talent to survive on Terra, and Kim Doyoung has been surviving for quite some time. It was relatively easy to track him down. After all, the Imperium’s database is more famed for being hellishly unorganized than for being secure.

“You’re not even trying to be discreet,” says Doyoung, his voice bouncing off of the tall alley walls. He doesn’t seem particularly pleased by this visit, judging by his tone.

Ten pushes himself off the ceramite wall, stepping out of the shadows and into the dull sliver of light. 

“No,” Ten says, the corners of his mouth already turning up at the sight of a familiar face. “I’m not trying at all.”

Doyoung raises an eyebrow, and Ten could practically hear the gears of his brain turning despite the incessant noise of Terra’s busy lower-end. 

“What do you want?” Doyoung asks, and his voice is softer this time, lacking all the apprehension it held just moments ago. 

“In the end, we all want the same thing, don’t we, Doie?” Ten takes slow steps towards Doyoung, boots thudding heavily against the sewage-moist ground. “We all crave for one thing. Release.”

-

“You’re not seriously thinking of deserting, are you?” 

Doyoung stirs his cup of tea with a slight furrow to his brow. His lips are upturned in an instinctive pout, hair falling in front of his eyes as he ushers Ten into a chair in his dining room. 

“Never took you as the paperwork type,” Ten says instead, vaguely eyeing the distant stack of paperwork on the kitchen counter. “Seeing you in the administratum robes feels odd. Suits you though.”

“Me neither,” says Doyoung quietly. 

“How did you do it?”

There’s silence for a long while, and they both know why. They both know why they’re suddenly treading on dangerous waters, they both know why this reunion holds no hint of happiness or sweet recollection. They both know that no matter how gallant the robes, how thick the paperwork, how skillful the disguise, Doyoung is not a harmless clerk behind a desk, and he will never be. 

At the core, Doyoung is just like Ten. An assassin. 

“I didn’t.”

“Bullshit,” Ten says instantly through gritted teeth. Doyoung flinches. “Drop the act, Doyoung.”

“I’m not lying,” Doyoung says, eyes fixated upon the surface of his tea and his light-green reflection. “I was- _am_ an assassin. At first, like you and Taeyong, and like anyone else, I killed to survive. It was kill or be killed, the basic rule for people like us. I learned how to manipulate and murder, and I learned how to do it well. For that, the Imperium loved me. I was a prizefighter, a standard, a statement. I alone was a message: _Stand against the Emperor, and you will die._ I lived up to that. However, a time came when I started killing for the fun of it.” 

Doyoung exhales, closing his eyes in deep self-contempt. 

“I found myself relishing in the death of others. I started taking my time, started enjoying how… how every scream of pain made me smile, how every agonizing second I spent slowly slitting a throat was pure bliss. Every minute, gruesome detail set off this satisfaction in me. And shortly after, I realized I was killing to survive again, because if I didn’t spill someone else’s blood, I might as well stop living. I was so disgusted with myself. I felt like I didn’t know who I was anymore. I’d lost every drop of my kindness, of my _humanity_. I knew I had to leave.”

“Did they let you?”

“No,” Doyoung says simply. “Of course not. How could they let me leave? Me, the man who brought down entire governments, killed hundreds in a single day, me, the deadliest product they’ve ever birthed. They didn’t, and they never would. You think me being here is release? Wrong. Me being here is a testament, a statement, that to desert the Imperium is to desert your freedom. I’m stuck to a life of servitude, slaving away at some simulated office block with mindless drones for coworkers. My every move outside this apartment is watched. It’s an illusion, Ten. It looks like I’m free, but I’m chained to this planet, to this Imperium, to the Emperor. One misstep and I’ll be exterminated. Every day is identical, so exactly the same, that sometimes I don’t know how to distinguish days from weeks and weeks from months. You’re the first person I’ve talked to ever since I left.”

“Doyoung, that was years ago,” Ten says, an odd feeling of sympathy blooming in his gut. “You think they’re listening to us right now?”

“I don’t doubt it.”  
  
“Well, that complicates things, doesn’t it?” 

Doyoung smiles wryly. “Don’t do it, Ten. There’s no freedom from the Imperium, no release from the life we chose. Not for us, not for people like us.”

-

It’s sunset by the time Ten’s made it back to his apartment. The golden rays of the dying sun stream in through the open windows, silence permeating the air even as Terra is anything but.

Ten pours himself a generous glass of wine and drags the nearest chair to the middle of the floor, where he sits himself down in front of the window. He relishes in the warmth that seeps under his skin, eyes closing on their own accord as thoughts of freedom run wild in the channels of his mind. Is freedom warm like the sun? Is it confined to a position in space, constant in that it’s always there, yet fleeting for you can only bathe in its glory during the day? 

Is freedom temporary like the day? Bright and unabated, spawning life and bleeding vibrance, yet there’s an inevitable sunset that drowns the universe in dark and cold.

There used to be an old tale, from the most ancient of historitor records, that the sun and moon set and rise for they are in a perpetual race; that the sun ever so loved the moon that he chased her among the stars—but never really caught her. He never got to hold his beloved in his arms, never was able to relish in their shared splendor.

Likewise, will Ten be foolish and chase his freedom in an endless race whose outcome has already been decided? 

As he brings his arm up to drink from his glass, he feels something shift from within his sleeve. Something smooth, and folded, like a piece of parchment. Ten pulls it out into view, hands expertly unfurling the parchment, upon which neat handwriting stares back at him. Doyoung must’ve somehow snuck it there, he’s quite sneaky after all.

_Escape may be possible. Hope is closer than you realize. Look to an old friend in the Schola Progenium. You are well acquainted._

_\- KDY_

Ten considers the letter for a moment. For a second, a bare inkling of hope sparks within him, but then, like a dying flame, like a setting sun, it was fleeting and gone in an instant. He crumples the parchment up, tossing it somewhere behind him. 

He brings his watch up to view, navigating the display until the Inquisition’s contact glares at him. He dials it, and the line connects before even the first ring. The other side is silent, devoid of greeting or any sign of a presence, but Ten knows someone is listening.

“This is identification number Ten, designation Ordo Hereticus. This transmission serves to duly inform the Inquisition that I am complying with my assignment, and to expect results within the week.”

Ten ends the transmission as soon as soon as he stops speaking, reclining further into his chair. He drinks from his glass of wine with unabated generosity. He fixates his eyes on the sun, just a mere speck in the distance now, its brilliance fading behind Terra’s gargantuan towers. It is but an ember in the ashes as night makes its inevitable fall.

Soon, he’s bathed in darkness, and he can feel the chains wind ever tighter.

-

Ten recalls Johnny as decent.

He’s proper, polite, and keeps his spaces clean. Even Johnny’s messiest kills fall under the relatively neat category. He’s decent like that.

He’s decent even in the appearance of his personal office, located in the higher levels of the Arbites’ headquarters. There’s a desk in the center of the room, parallel to and facing away from a row of floor-to-ceiling windows that surely would have made the room ethereal during sunset. Atop the desk lay several closed folders of criminal cases stacked one upon the other, and a shiny placard lay ahead of all the organized clutter like a crown, and upon the gold, etched in black were words Ten mulled over in his mind long after he'd read them.

_Commissar-Detective Seo Youngho_

Years ago, it would’ve only been Commissar Seo Youngho, without the detective attachment. Years ago, the commissar had been present only on the battlefield, where his most important of directives were to execute all those who dared to flee from a fight. 

Johnny was a different kind of killer. Where people like Taeyong and Ten would bide their time formulating the most intricate plans for assassination, and there were those like Doyoung who would conduct their business in the shadows, the only evidence of their presence being a cold body, there were people like Johnny, whose job is to kill in plain view, a death that serves a unique purpose: a warning. 

A commissar is living proof that there is no escape from the battlefield. There’s a saying that goes, ‘There are two ways to go on the field of battle, either die at the hands of the enemy or the pistol of a commissar.’

Ten exhales forcefully, quite fed up with the mention of escape and freedom anywhere he goes. It’s as if it’s there, hiding behind every corner, lurking close in the near shadows, but he can never touch it, can never have it for himself. 

Johnny could walk in through that door any moment now, and all Ten would have to do is draw his gun and put a bullet in Johnny’s chest. That’s all it takes. A single bullet.

The doorknob turns, and it’s as if time slows down to the most grinding pace.

The door clicks, and it swings open, and there he is. Ten’s breath hitches.

Johnny walks in through the doorway, his height tempered by the way he’s bent over a folder in his hands. His mouth moves in incoherent words, his body turned ever so slightly to a shorter man beside him.

He doesn’t expect Johnny’s co-worker to be the same inquisitor lord that summoned him just days ago. Kibum notices Ten before Johnny does, his eyes devoid of surprise, only recognition and a loaded raise of the brow.

Ten cocks the gun in his hand, and that’s when Johnny meets his eyes. It was like being thrown into an ice bath, like exposing your skin to flame. It was captivating, enough to send your mind into a frenzy, enough to kickstart the thunderous beating of your heart, enough to make you come alive in the fraction of a second. 

“Ten?” Johnny stops, mouth hanging slightly open. His eyes flicker momentarily between Ten’s face and the gun in his hand. “What are you-”

Johnny flinches as his words are cut off by the crackle of a gunshot. 


	2. II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A gunshot echoes from behind Ten. Johnny stands in between the elevator doors, standing there all hot and shit, with smoke snaking out the barrel of his gun, and sweat beading on his forehead and his shirt buttons looking like they’re about to pop any second.
> 
> “You good?” 
> 
> “Perfectly fine,” Ten says breathlessly, and not necessarily from the fighting. “Let’s go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's chapter two. Enjoy <3

**10 Years Ago** _The Schola Progenium on Terra_

The halls of the Schola Progenium are shrouded in darkness. The silence is thick and almost tangible, as if it clings to the walls and furniture. It envelops most of everything in a bubble of quiet and nothingness. 

“I really don’t think we should be doing this,” Johnny says, although he continues to let Ten lead him through the Schola’s hallways without resistance. Ten holds him by the hand, their fingers loosely intertwined. 

“I really think we should. Why are you suddenly being a law-abiding citizen, huh? You weren’t opposed to our brief stint in the records room earlier at lunchtime.” Ten glances at Johnny with those cat-like eyes of his, brimming with barely contained impishness. Johnny smirks at the memory, the devilish heat of the moment they shared burning fresh still in his mind.

“I’m just saying, Abbot Kim could find us in the middle of… whatever you’re planning to do. He’s not particularly fond of us.”

“Fuck Abbot Kim, so I say,” Ten says, and Johnny snickers, unable to disagree. “Besides, I wasn’t going to try anything _wild_. I’m not always horny, you know.”

“Sometimes I wonder,” Johnny says, and Ten squeezes his hand in a weak attempt at apprehension. 

Ten brings them to a metal door that sits atop a winding staircase. 

“The rooftop?” Johnny raises an eyebrow, surprise unmasked. Ten wordlessly pushes the door open, and he wishes he could photograph the look on Johnny’s face when he sees the simple picnic blanket laid out on the ground, lit up by shoddy fairy lights strewn where they could be hung. 

It’s simple, but it’s what they both want. Time together, away from the prying eyes of the Schola’s Abbots and the silent scrutiny of their fellow progena.

“Do you like it? Kun is covering for us, so we don’t have to worry about being caught.” Ten can’t bring himself to speak above a whisper.

Johnny’s eyes soften when he looks at him, and that’s all it takes for Ten’s heart to start hammering uncontrollably in his chest. 

“Of course I do,” Johnny says tenderly, his hand tightening against Ten’s at its own accord. He looks at Ten with a glossy look in his eye, shiny and sparkly as if he held the stars in his irises. 

“Come on.” Ten leads them to the blanket, discarding their shoes as they make themselves comfy on the soft fabric. They end up with another blanket wrapped around both their shoulders, sharing each other’s warmth as they stare up at the starless sky.

“We were able to see the stars from here, once.” Johnny says quietly. “Our ancestors were once able to sit here and look up at a starry sky, before all the light made it impossible to see them. Now…” 

He trails off, turning his head to look at Ten. 

“Now?”

“And now, there’s only Luna.”

Luna is bright tonight, more so yellow than it is silver. A round celestial body, the only one clearly visible from the vast depths of space that stretched around Terra. Tonight, Luna is especially majestic, and if Johnny wasn’t here, Ten’s sure that he wouldn’t be able to look away. 

“Right,” Ten says, distracted by the glow on Johnny’s face cast there by the very same Luna. He looks unreal almost, ethereal in a sense that he looks as if a pair of wings can sprout from his back at any moment, and he can just take off into the night. “Kun said there’d be a supermoon tonight. I thought you would’ve loved to see it up here instead of craning your neck out the window like you always do.”

Johnny is angelic, Ten decides.

“This really means a lot to me, Ten. Thank you,” Johnny whispers, his breath fanning across Ten’s cheek as he presses a soft kiss to the warm skin. “I love you.”

“Love you too,” Ten says, his words swallowed by Johnny’s lips on his. The kiss is soft, light, and yet the feeling of it stays on Ten’s lips long after it's over, like the ghost of a once brilliant flame. “I wish we had more moments like this. Being at the Schola is like living on a plane of reality where everything is twice amplified. Time moves faster, your actions have heavier consequences, and our futures just loom ahead of us, obscured by some dark cloud that we can never see through. Nothing is certain, nothing is constant. Nothing except you.”

“Ten.” The name leaves Johnny’s lips like it was his last breath, heavy and significant, quiet and almost inaudible and yet it was loaded with unprecedented meaning.

“But I can’t make myself commit to this, can I?”

Johnny nods, brushing Ten’s hair out of his eyes with careful fingers. “And I’ve accepted that.”

“What if I haven’t?” The words were an afterthought, a lingering residue of feelings buried deep in the recesses of Ten’s heart. In that moment, in that fleeting second, it was as if those feelings escaped in the form of a sentence that was blown away by the wind the moment it leaves Ten’s lips.

“Hm? D’you say something?” Johnny busies himself with nuzzling into the crook of Ten’s neck, and the latter can only sigh.

“Nope,” Ten’s hand finds itself on Johnny’s cheek, caressing the soft skin with the pad of his thumb. “Why are you settling for this?” 

“What do you mean?” Johnny catches Ten’s hand in his own. 

“This. _Us.”_ Ten puts some distance between them, gesturing vaguely at themselves. “We’re in an ambiguous relationship with no security. I tell you that I can’t commit, and you just take it without question.” 

“Do you not want me to?”

 _“No._ It’s selfish, but of course I do. I just think you deserve so much better than what we have right now, Johnny.“ The words are easy to say, much harder to come to terms with. Ten knows it’s the truth. “You deserve the best.” 

“And I have the best. You’re unmatched, Ten.” 

And it’s things like that, simple things like small gestures that make Ten’s heart beat as clamorous thunder, or a sentence like that, so honest and so easy for Johnny to say, not knowing how weak it makes Ten. 

“Listen.” Johnny’s hands are firmer now, guiding Ten by the jaw so they can look each other in the eye. “I’ve never and will never regret a moment I spend with you. And every second I share with you is, to me, the most precious thing in the universe. I don’t care if you can’t commit—none of us can. Right now, we’re together, and that’s all that matters. The future is grim, but we don’t have to face that right now. I’m happy with you, okay? I’ll do anything for you.” 

Ten can’t say anything, can’t will his voice to come out because even if he tries, all that will come out is a breathless sigh. 

Ten cares for Johnny more than anything else. Ten cares for him so much that it’s actually quite scary. But as they make themselves comfortable under Luna’s light, with only each other’s warmth to spare, fingers intertwined and breaths mingling, a battle rages on inside Ten. Perhaps for Johnny, he’ll go against even fate.

-

“Ten?” Johnny stops, mouth hanging slightly open. His eyes flicker momentarily between Ten’s face and the gun in his hand. “What are you-”

Johnny flinches as his words are cut off by the crackle of a gunshot. 

Kibum collapses to the ground.

Johnny looks down at Kibum’s body with wide eyes, various sounds of strained bewilderment coming from his throat. He sputters like a broken machine. “Holy shit—” 

“Close the door,” Ten says, and the door clicks shut. “Do you trust me, Johnny?”

Johnny stares at Ten with wide eyes. Wide, genuine eyes that could barely conceal the storm of conflicted emotions brewing in him. 

“You know I do. I always have.” Johnny’s chest rises and falls, his voice shaky despite an attempt to be firm. Ten blinks away the blurriness forming in his sight. “But you’re going to have to tell me what’s going on.” 

“The Inquisition wanted me to kill you to prove my loyalty. One chance. This was all I had, but I couldn’t do it, Johnny.” Ten holsters his gun, an excuse to focus on something else, anything but Johnny and his vulnerable stares. “I couldn’t prove my loyalty, and now the Inquisition has it out for us both.”

“Does that mean that my assistant who you just shot is-”

“-is Inquisition, yes. One of my handlers, actually. He was probably sent here to make sure I follow through. They’re in for a surprise.”

“They?”

“There’s probably more of them outside that door. Any moment now, they’re going to come in here and shoot us both dead. That is, unless we do something really, _really_ crazy. Borderline lunacy, really.” 

“Why are you being so casual about this, Ten?”

“Because I _can’t_ be weak right now,” The words come out in an instant, escaping through a hole in the walls Ten has built so high up.

“You’re far from it.” Johnny is sincere, so stupidly sincere that Ten scoffs.

“Much has changed since we’ve last seen each other, Johnny. I’m not so invincible anymore.” Ten clocks several signatures on his auspex making a beeline for the very room they’re in. “I’ll ask again. Do you trust me, Johnny?"

“Of course,” Johnny says without an ounce of hesitation. “I do. I’m all yours, Ten.”

“Good.” Ten tosses Johnny his pistol, having fished it out of his desk’s drawer moments earlier. “I hope your desk job hasn’t made you less of a good shot.”

Johnny snorts. “Never.”

“Stay close.” 

Ten is halfway out the door when a trembling hand grips the hem of his coat. 

“You’re a bitch for shooting me,” Kibum croaks, blood trailing down the side of his mouth. 

“You’ll live.” After all, Ten made sure that his shot was non-fatal. 

“The Inquisition will never set you free.” 

“Yeah? They don’t know who they’re dealing with.”

“Why are you doing this? For what, a man? An old flame?” Kibum’s eyes are losing focus now, but Ten thinks that Kibum has always been out of focus. His sight, however piercing, has never caught on to the finer things in life. Conniving, crafty Kibum, unable to look forward to anything but his next target. By now he’s pulled himself up so that he’s sitting up against one of Johnny’s bookshelves. 

Ten regards him with a cold look. Kibum has always been about logic, but when it comes to Johnny, Ten’s logic is all but lost. 

“I wouldn’t expect you to understand.”

Johnny appears in the doorway. “Ten, they’re close. We should go.”

“Let’s.” Ten draws his gun, casting one last look at his handler. Kibum blinks blearily at him, close to unconsciousness. Wordlessly, Ten strides out into the hallway.

“Do you have an escape plan?”

“I always do.” Ten turns into a hallway, aiming a shot at the surveillance camera on the far ceiling’s corner. The bullet embeds itself in the lens with a brief crack. 

“The elevator?” It lies at the end of the hall, its metal doors so blandly grey even when the light shines off of it. ”Doesn’t seem like you to make a simple exit.” 

“We have a few minutes to spare before they realize that Kibum’s been compromised. Should be enough time to get ourselves a lift down.”

The ride down is filled with loaded silence. Unanswered questions linger so obscenely in the air. Ten breathes a forceful exhale.

Seventy floors to go. 

“Ten—“

 _“Later,_ Johnny. I know this is hard, and I know I shouldn’t just expect you to be okay with this mess I’ve gotten you in, and I _will_ explain it to you, alright? But we need to get the hell out of here first.” 

Brief silence. “I want to kiss you right now.”

Fifty-five. Ten smirks. “Course you do.”

“You haven’t changed one bit.” 

Ten looks Johnny in the eye, head tilted in feigned nonchalance. “That’s where you’re wrong.” 

Forty.

“You’re right. You’ve aged like fine wine.”

Ten closes his eyes, hoping that when he opens them again this will just be a fever dream, because this _can’t_ be real.

Thirty.

Ten can’t suppress the airy chuckle that follows. “We’re on the verge of death and all you can think about is flirting with me.”

“I’ve missed you.” Twenty. 

Ten forces himself not to think about how soft, how sincere Johnny sounded, because if he does he wouldn’t be able to cope. Not with the storm of chaos raging on right now. _Not at all._

“I—“ At fifteen floors left, the elevator halts abruptly, shaking enough to throw them off balance. The lights flicker. 

Ten clicks his tongue disdainfully. “They found out. Shit.”

“We’ve got to cut ourselves loose, then.”

“Yeah. Would you mind?”

“Sure.” Johnny takes off his suit jacket, and Ten can’t help but ogle the tight fit of the white button-up shirt around Johnny’s body.

Johnny hands him the jacket with a smirk. “Hold this for me please?”

Ten rolls his eyes. Johnny is too smug for his own good, too full of himself even as he reaches up to the lift’s ceiling to bust open the trap door. He starts banging against it with a firm fist. Ten tries not to stare at how Johnny’s bicep strains against the fabric of his clothes. He bites his lip. He can’t help but let his eyes drift further down, all the way to the curve of Johnny’s ass so perfectly accentuated by a well-fitted pair of slacks. 

Ten tries to look away. He _really_ does.

He fails.

Just then, the elevator doors slide open, revealing an entire platoon of Inquisition stormtroopers with lasguns brought up to bear. 

Ten grits out a profanity, throwing himself to the corner just in time as laserfire scalds holes into the opposite wall of the lift. 

“I’ll cover you! Get up top!” Ten throws a stun grenade through the gap between the elevator doors. Johnny nods just as light erupts from the hallway, accompanied by several deafening bangs. 

Ten slides out of cover down on a knee, firing several successive shots at the closest targets. Blood splatters the walls as the bullets find their marks. 

He takes advantage of the men’s disorientation, getting up close, within knifing range. Ten has always been proficient with a gun, but with a knife? He’s deadly. 

He’s able to slash at a single throat before a stormtrooper manages to sneak in behind him, scoring a blow to the back of his knee with the handle of his firearm, forcing Ten onto the ground. Quick as a feline, Ten slashes the knife deep into the soldier’s thigh with a growl, deep enough to sever the femoral artery. When the stormtrooper collapses to the floor, Ten buries the knife in his forehead, the adamantium blade piercing through his helmet like a stake through the heart.

“Don’t move!”

The stormtrooper stands some distance away, too far for melee. Ten reaches for his pistol.

“Drop the gun or I’ll shoot!” 

Ten draws his bolter out of its holster, laying it down on the ground with both his hands up.

Then, a single gunshot echoes from behind Ten, and a bullet pierces the stormtrooper square on the chest. Ten turns to see Johnny in between the elevator doors, standing there all _hot_ and shit, with smoke snaking out the barrel of his gun, and sweat beading on his forehead and his shirt buttons looking like they’re about to pop any second.

“You good?” 

“Perfectly fine,” Ten says breathlessly, and not necessarily from the fighting. “Let’s go.” 

They waste no time in getting themselves up top the lift. Johnny helps Ten up with a firm arm, and soon they're standing among a myriad of mechanisms and beams of metal. It was dark, and the only lights they have are the amber strobes that designate every floor. They barely penetrated the thick abundance of shadows.

Johnny hesitates. “You’re gonna want to hold on to something."

“I think I’m fine.”

“Suit yourself," Johnny says, and Ten ignores the brow raised in amusement.

Johnny aims his gun upwards, firing several bullets in quick succession. The car comes loose in an instant as the suspension ropes come unhinged. Sparks fly from the damaged machine box at the top of the shaft, the sound of the straining ropes grating to the ears.

They fall quickly, quick enough to turn everything into an unrecognizable blur, enough for the metal beneath their feet to rattle uncomfortably. 

It turns out that Ten does have to hold on to something, which in this case just happens to be Johnny’s very, _very_ firm arm. 

Johnny wraps said arm around Ten’s waist just before the elevator hits rock bottom. At the last second Johnny almost effortlessly leaps up to one of the shaft’s beams with Ten secure in his arm, saving their legs from being shattered as the car crashes rather loudly into the ground. 

Ten has to press himself flush against Johnny to prevent them from toppling over.

“I can hear your heartbeat,” Ten say without meaning to, without realizing he even said it at all until Johnny chuckles, the light sound a rumble in Ten’s ear.

“You’re very light.” 

“I have a bike outside.” Ten is thankful for the cover of shadows, because he’s probably crimson red right now. “We should probably go.”

They find themselves back down inside the elevator car, the floor utterly deformed by the fall. The doors were lodged in a half-open state, wiring streaming out of panels torn open and dust just beginning to settle. 

Ten and Johnny have to force open one of the car doors just to get out, and when they do, thrice as many stormtroopers are waiting. 

“Shit.”

Johnny chuckles. “Seems about right.”

Chaos erupts as shots are fired.

-

In the deeper levels of the Inquisitorial Lodge, sinister things are at work.

“The Representative wishes to see you.”

Taemin is guided by the monotone voice, a shadowy face he can barely remember, to a simple dark door. It opens with a soft click.

He steps inside to find the small frame of a woman sitting behind a desk. A woman, whose name remains unknown to all but the most revered of the Inquisition’s ranks. 

The room is far too dark, a single overhead fixture being the only source of brightness, and even then, it wasn’t all too helpful.

For Taemin, life is one long movie with endless twists and turns and never an ending in sight. This moment right now seems like a scene from those overrated action films, Taemin thinks. It's like the moment at the end where the audience finds out that the villain isn’t where it ends, that there’s a mastermind who was lurking in the shadows all this time. The audience waits in anticipation as the mastermind turns ominously in their chair as the camera pans closer, and just as their face is about to be revealed, the credits start rolling. The only difference is that this time, it doesn't cut to black.

“Number eighteen. Taemin, is it? Welcome. Have a seat.” The representative’s voice is distinct. If Taemin were to put a voice to the word ‘authority’, this would be it. “I’m not one to beat around the bush, so I’ll be succinct. Kibum has been compromised. He’s currently in intensive care, although he should be back in the field in the near future. You’ve been a great asset to the Inquisition, Taemin. Your career has been quite impressive. I’ve read your file, and I take it you seem to have a predilection for extensive torture?”

“Pardon?” Taemin doesn’t know how to respond. He suddenly can’t find any words in his throat, and his mouth hangs slightly parted. Now it’s the chilling scene in the film where plot twists are presented, and it’s revealed that the enemy knows more than they let on. 

“It’s not explicitly stated in your file, of course. It took some reading between the lines. You have a track record of performing clean kills during evaluations, which you clearly apply to your missions. However, the bodies we’ve had the pleasure of recovering all exhibit a pattern: each indicates a litany of severe injuries dealt prior to the time of death. The most common ones seem to be flagellation, mutilation, disfigurement… and sometimes even castration. I won’t hold this against you, we all have our hobbies, after all. However, the Inquisition believes that your skills are better put to hunting down one of our runaway mice.”

On the far end of the room, a video starts playing, a surveillance footage of some sorts. Taemin recognizes it as the lobby of the Arbites’ headquarters. It shows Ten and Johnny fighting their way through squads of Inquisition stormtroopers, littering the ground with dead bodies in their wake.

Taemin mulls over the Representative’s words. “You want me to bring Ten in, ma’am?” 

“Correct. And after you do so, you’ll have him all to yourself in a cell. You'll be free to carry out all your desired methods of torture. It'll be punishment for him, and reward for you. It’s only fitting, as you are his handler.”

“And what of the commissar?”

“His fate remains to be decided.” 

The Representative leans out of the shadows, bearing to light a terrifying scar running across the left side of her face. It extended from her forehead to her cheek, cutting through an eye that is now all but white. Taemin can practically hear an ominous soundtrack reaching its explosive climax. 

“The Inquisition awaits your compliance.”

Now they've reached the part where the music rises with unbearable suspense. The orchestra gains momentum, it gets more intense, and just when you think it's all about to explode, there's silence.

The camera zooms into the main character. The audience is at the edge of their seats. The silence builds up their anticipation.

“Yes, ma’am.” 

The music resumes with a decisive crescendo. The scene cuts to black as the credits roll. 

-

When being pursued through the hellishly busy streets of Terra, a bike proves to be the optimal mode of escape.

Ten tears down a crowded street, swerving in between trucks and cars and an array of other vehicles that make up Terra’s infamously chaotic traffic. The agitated horns of disgruntled drivers assault Ten’s ears as they fly past, mixing in with the incoherent noise of denizens milling about at the sides of the road. 

It’s particularly hard to focus on keeping them from crashing into a pole or from running down people on the sidewalk, because Johnny’s arms are wound so tight around Ten’s waist, his chest pressed so close to his back that Ten can’t think straight. 

“Where are we going?” Johnny’s voice is almost lost in the current of air gushing past them, his lips dangerously close to Ten’s ear.

“Sewage system,” Ten yells. They’re forced to keep their heads down when bullets streak past them, cutting crisp through the air, tearing new holes onto the vehicles and street fronts around them. 

Ten casts a look over his shoulder, spots the Inquisition giving chase. Hand on the handle twisting as hard as possible, Ten pushes the engine to its limits until they’re but a blur, until they’re a comet unravelling the pavement.

“Get ready to jump!”

As a distant market square swiftly gets closer, both Ten and Johnny manage to leap off the bike before it crashes into a lackluster statue in the center of the square. Debris flies in all directions, a dust cloud congesting much of the air. 

Well-acquainted with the ground—that’s what Ten is as he swallows the bitter taste of dirt on his tongue and pats off the dust on his knees and shoulders. 

“Come on,” he says, already sprinting toward a nearby marketplace. “Let’s lose them in the market.”

They end up in a familiar place where kiosks face you at every turn and market-goers are no more than an inch apart. Ten remembers this place, remembers the days they sneaked out of the Schola to nick wine and cigars and a plethora of other things that the abbots would’ve had their heads for. They keep their heads down as they navigate the crowd. 

Ten deftly plucks a bomber jacket from a rack they pass by, shoving it into Johnny’s arms. 

“Take off that suit, put this on.” 

“I know the drill.” Johnny shrugs the piece of clothing off, casting it off to be trampled on the ground. He slides on the bomber, the sweat on his skin uncomfortable against the fabric. 

“Hot,” Ten says, handing Johnny a cap. He gives Johnny a once-over once he puts it on. “Perfect. You look like a frat boy with an identity crisis.”

Johnny snorts. “Why am I the only one with the disguise?”

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m not exactly the tallest tool in the shed, Johnny,” Ten says, unimpressed. “I don’t need a disguise in a crowd like this when they can’t see me in the first place.”

It takes a surprisingly short time to get out of the crowd, and they find themselves in an abandoned alley where rats freely traipse around on the stank ground. Ten has to ask Johnny for help in moving an overflowing cart of garbage, beneath which lay hidden a manhole that they were all too well-acquainted with. 

“This takes me way back,” Johnny says, lifting the lid. It drags against the ground with a dense sound. The stench that assaults them makes them both gag.

“Tell me about it. It’s still fucking disgusting.” 

They share a look. 

“Ladies first.”

Ten punches Johnny in the gut without much force. He takes a deep breath and jumps in. Ten’s thankful when his feet hit solid ground. The first thing you notice is the smell. The smell is much worse down here. So much worse. Johnny jumps in not much longer after him.

“At least all the shit’s dried up,” Johnny says, looking around. Ten fetches a flashlight from within his coat.

“I’m not sure if that’s supposed to be better or worse.”

Ten shines the light down the path they used to take. Now, the concrete is no longer moist but the air is still humid. Sewage no longer flowed in the canals, as this system has been abandoned years ago. Now, there was only trash littering the ground and dried up, shrivelled waste that had hardened a long time ago.

They come to a tunnel that breaks away from the main sewage system, the entrance to a complex of underground passages that ultimately lead to the Schola Progenium. They used to be able to freely come and go, but now there’s a steel grate that stands between them and their destination. 

It’s made of thick steel, the kind that would make it hard for even Ten or Johnny to break in. The good news though, is that part of the grate functions as a door, which means that they can still get in. 

“They found out that the kids are sneaking out,” Johnny says forlornly.

“Or they want to keep people like us away.” 

Deciding that his legs have had enough for the day, Ten takes off his coat and lays it down on the floor so he can sit on it. He leans back against the wall, exhaling his exhaustion away. Johnny stares at him quizzically.

“What are you doing?” 

“Waiting.” Ten pats the empty space next to him. “We’ll send a message to the Schola and wait for them to let us in. We have some time to kill until then.”

Johnny gives in with a sigh. He takes his spot beside Ten, their arms pressing against each other. 

“How exactly do you plan to send this message?”

Ten fetches his auspex out of his coat pocket. “Remember our little trick?”

A glint of recognition shines in Johnny’s eyes. 

“Of course. We engineered our auspexes so that they’d pick up other auspexes instead of people, and we altered the frequencies so that we could send coded messages too. It was a method of communication that couldn’t be tracked.” Johnny smiles, and it shines with the brightness of happy memories long since passed. “We were some geniuses.”

Ten laughs. “Yeah we were. I knew this would come in handy someday.”

Ten tinkers with it for a while, with Johnny holding the flashlight for him.

“There,” Ten says. With a few presses of the buttons, he sends a message. “Now all we have to do is wait.”

Johnny hums in approval. It's quiet for some time until Johnny breaks it. “Why the Schola?”

“Hm? Oh. There’s someone here that can help us, give us the things we'll need for our journey off-planet.”

Johnny straightens. “We’re leaving Terra? Why? How are you going to manage that?”

“I don't know yet." Ten chews at his lip when Johnny regards him with a calculating gaze. "That's why we're here. It's easier said than done, but you’re going to have to trust me, okay? I know what I'm doing. Even if we both know that there’s no escaping the Imperium, the farther we are from Terra, the better. Maybe we can even have some peace of mind, somewhere out in the Obscura.” Ten looks at Johnny, and the moment he does, he can’t tear his eyes away. It’s been far too long since he’s seen that face. Now, all he can do is greedily take it in. “I’m sorry you had to get involved in this.”

“Not your fault. We’re both just victims of the Imperium, Ten. Besides, I don't have much going for me. I lived my life case after case, cases that were all the same. I dealt with murders to further political plots. Assassinations to get rid of opposition. Drug lords killing innocents. Innocents killing each other like puppets of the ones in power. All that crime and corruption stared me in the face and the cases I wasn’t ordered to cover up were abandoned. And all that waits for me at home is a half-cold bottle of cheap shitty rum.” Ten has never heard bitterness in Johnny’s voice, has never heard that calming cadence tainted by gloom, or regret, or drabness. But now, his drawl makes way for a hint of resentment that makes Ten’s heart ache for him.

Johnny continues. “I’ve always wanted to escape too, you know? I guess you were just the braver one. If anything, I’m thankful this happened to me.”

Ten scoffs derisively. “I’m not brave. Stupid, more like.”

“Get some rest.” Johnny says it the same way he told Ten that he’s missed him, in the way he would probably say ‘I love you’. “I’ll keep watch.”

When Johnny turns to look at Ten, he finds that the latter’s eyes had already fluttered close. Despite the deep bags under Ten’s eyes, the smudge of dirt on his cheek and the unkempt state of his hair, Johnny still thinks he looks pretty. Ten looks rather peaceful when he's asleep. He looks more vulnerable, more fragile, and Johnny wants nothing more than to protect him. So, flashlight in hand, Johnny keeps his eyes peeled. He makes sure that he’s pressed close enough to Ten in case he gets cold. He makes sure that his shoulder is right there in case Ten starts looking for a place to rest his head on, because if Ten can put his life on the line for both of them, Johnny can afford to grant him some moments of solace. 

-

Sometimes, Ten dreams of the moon. He dreams of nights spent curled up with Johnny under the moonlight. Peaceful, quiet nights, filled with endless love and passion and tenderness.

He dreams of Johnny saying his name.

"Ten," and Johnny says it so perfectly. When Johnny says his name, it feels right. 

He says it like it wasn't just a number attached to him. 

He says it warm with breath that fans over his skin. It felt like the tender flame of a fireplace, the kind you lean into, the kind that nurtures.

"Ten." When Johnny says his name, it feels like home.

" _Ten!"_

Ten is shaken awake by Johnny's hands on both his shoulders, his face pinched with worry.

"What?" Ten sits up, blinking away the drowsiness of sleep from his eyes. 

"Someone's coming."

Ten checks his auspex, but there was nothing on the display. No red blips, no warning. 

"It's the Schola." 

The metal grate gets blown off its hinges by some unseen force. 

"Johnny, light!" Before Johnny could even raise the flashlight, a throwing knife buries itself in it. Johnny's hand is lucky to be alive.

Ten lets loose, firing shots in the dark. Johnny draws his gun as well, but a gunshot echoes from within the tunnel, followed by a bullet that crashes into the barrel of Johnny's gun, blasting it out of his hands. Someone in the shadows harasses him with a pair of batons until he's writhing on the ground.

"Johnny!"

Before he knows it, Ten is being kneed in the gut by someone who's supremely fast, and in the dark, he can't do anything against the strategic blows to his pressure points that render him on his knees for the nth time that day.

Ten swiftly performs a sweeping kick on the ground around him, finding satisfaction when his foot connects with someone's leg. The yelp that follows tells Ten that he's dealing with a boy, and he uses the sound as a guide to score a kick to the stomach, effectively putting the boy out of the fight. The sound of something long and thin cutting through air comes from behind him, and Ten quickly sidesteps to avoid the incoming baton, instead grabbing it when it misses its mark, stealing it out of its owner's hand. With a spring-like motion, Ten aims a strike on the space he assumes to be his opponent's forehead, and when the baton's wider end collides with something firm, Ten knows he only has two more to go. With devastating accuracy, he launches the baton in the sniper's direction. It lodges itself in the sniper's barrel just as the marksman pulls on the trigger, and a mini-explosion cripples the weapon, blasts it out of the marksman's hands. Ten fumbles around for his bolter, and when his fingers make contact with the cold metal, he doesn't waste any time in unleashing the magazine on his last target. Each bullet, however, is deflected by the dense, heavy head of an adamantium battle hammer. 

A heavy thud echoes from the tunnel, and as if on command, the entire sewage system is lit up by lines of sterile lighting that hung loosely from the ceilings. Ten immediately sees three people. Pressure point boy is clutching his stomach on all fours, baton guy is passed out snow-angel style, and Mr. Marksman holds half a scalded sniper in one hand.

Ten rushes over to Johnny. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine, thanks. At least my ribs are still intact, but my dignity as a fighter? Not so much." As Ten helps Johnny up, something seems to catch the latter's attention. "Uh, Ten?"

Ten follows his gaze, seeing the man walking out of the tunnel's shadows. He's dressed in drill abbot attire: a set of red robes that were tight around the upper body and all frilly and flowy down below. There were chains around his waist. His battle hammer was nearly as tall as him. His unblemished face is a familiar one. Entirely too familiar. 

"Holy shit." Ten's voice does his disbelief no justice. 

What seems to be the Schola Progenium's premiere drill abbot stands before them, and they know him by an endeared name.

Kun's expression is darker and grimmer than the coming night.

"Welcome back," Kun says, not sounding particularly impressed or overjoyed to see them. "Old friends."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> don't forget to drop a kudos and maybe a comment !! always be safe, stay indoors!!


	3. III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You have every right to detest me now that you know this.” 
> 
> “I could never bring myself to think ill of you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my update schedule is non-existent. chapter three is ,, a rollercoaster i think! it’s a very kun-heavy chapter and with good reason. im sorry in advance <3 
> 
> WARNING: character death

Kun's expression is darker and grimmer than the coming night.

"Welcome back," Kun says, not sounding particularly impressed or overjoyed to see them. "Old friends."

“Kun—”

Kun strides over to Ten, grabbing his collar by the fistful. Ten stumbles as Kun drags him forward, and his feet only find brittle balance when he’s forced to lean his weight on Kun’s chest. Johnny tries to step in between them, but his protests fall on unhearing ears, and he’s forced back by the head of Kun’s hammer.

“It’s alright, Johnny,” Ten says, struggling helplessly against Kun’s firm grip. 

Kun’s face is so close to his that their breaths mingle with each exhale.

“Listen very carefully. Your survival depends on it,” Kun says, quietly enough that only the two of them could hear. “There’s a camera in the tunnel, hidden in the dark. It’s stuck to the ceiling. The Inquisition is watching. But before that, I need you to knee me in the stomach.”

_“What?”_

_“Just do it,”_ Kun says, and when Ten still doesn’t budge, he does something that makes even Johnny mutter a _‘what the fuck’_ under his breath. As if the distance between them wasn’t miniscule enough, Kun presses even closer, until their lips are brushing together and Ten has no choice but to knee him square in the solar plexus.

Kun falls to the ground at once, his face nearly as red as his robes as he tries to recover from getting the wind knocked out of his lungs. 

“Abbot!” 

Ten almost forgets about the three boys Kun brought along with him, and he’s only reminded that they’re witnessing this entire ordeal when the one with the sniper rushes over to the older man’s side. 

“Camera,” Kun wheezes, doubling over.

Ten brings his gun up, aims a bullet where Kun said the camera would be, and when he pulls the trigger, the gunshot is followed by the crack and spark of a destroyed camera. 

“Not cool, Kun,” Johnny says, although he extends a hand toward him anyway. Kun takes his hand, and despite his attempt at a grateful smile, it ends up looking like a pained grimace. 

“I hope you’ll forgive me, Johnny,” Kun says, out of breath. He pats the taller man’s shoulder as consolation. “Necessary action had to be taken. Ten has never made it a habit to listen to me.”

“You were being very cryptic,” Ten says in defense. “You’re lucky I didn’t shoot you for trying to kiss me.”

“The abbot is risking a great deal by saving you both from the Inquisition.” It’s the same boy with the sniper who interrupts them, his thick brows furrowing disapprovingly, his lips moving with a distasteful sneer. “You should be grateful.”

“And you are?” Ten raises a brow.

“Xiao Dejun. Marksman-to-be.”

“Remind me to replace that gun of yours next time we meet,” Ten says, despite knowing that this first meeting of theirs will probably be their last as well. 

“There’s no time to waste,” Kun says, already walking in the direction of the tunnel. “Let’s get a move on. The faster we get out of here, the better.” 

The tunnel complex beneath the Schola is vast and winding. To those unfamiliar with it, getting lost would be no challenge at all. It’s a labyrinth known to but a few, and the countless who had the misfortune of accidentally stumbling into it and delving too far in have never seen the light of day again. There are times when a stray draft of wind finds itself blowing through these tunnels, and it leaves behind a sound akin to disembodied wailing. Ten’s imagination used to run wild in these tunnels, and he’d more often than not ended up scaring himself on the nights that he wandered around without Johnny to accompany him. 

The mold-stained concrete walls that surround them have witnessed things nothing, nor no one else has ever seen. In fact, history has a different way of being written down here. Every bone, every shattered shackle, every bullet hole and every scratch on the wall has its own chilling narrative, stories that Ten’s not sure he’d like to hear. 

Tonight, the eerie blanket of quiet is pierced by hurried footfalls, and they only stop when they reach a fork in the path.

“Straight to the dormitories, the three of you,” Kun says, and despite his hushed tone, his voice carries across the tunnels with an echo. “Dejun, you’re in charge. Tuck Yangyang in, would you? Lights out immediately.”

Ten’s almost sure that Yangyang sticks his tongue out at the abbot, but in the dark, it was hard to tell.

“As you wish, abbot.” Dejun beckons for Yangyang to follow him, and the younger boy does so with a characteristic spring to his step. They disappear down the dark tunnel, the one Ten remembers taking on the nights he and Johnny would get drunk in the pub near the market. The memory makes the corner of his lip turn up even just a little.

“Kunhang?” 

The boy in question has medium-length hair that would be coveted by even the nobles in Terra’s upper end, and he has a face that the dark did no justice. He’s the one with the batons, Ten recalls.

“Make sure they don’t get in trouble, hm?”

Kunhang nods briefly before following in the steps of his friends, and soon, only the three of them remain. They diverge from the main tunnel and off into a smaller one, one where the smell of rusted metal all but invades the nose. 

The following silence gives way for Ten’s senses to tune into the finer details of his surroundings. He focuses on Johnny’s breathing, finds comfort in each exhale. Then, he notices the periodic thud of Kun’s hammer against the ground, hears his heavier huff of breath every time he steps forward with his right foot. 

“What happened to your foot? You’re limping.” Ten’s brows furrow, his voice making way for an unveiled tone of concern. A beat of silence passes. “Kun?”

“Let’s just say that my being abbot wasn’t planned,” Kun stops, and turns so that he’s facing the two of them now. His face, though unblemished in the light, is different in the dark. The shadow, and what little pale light they had in the tunnels, cast a blanket of gloom on Kun’s face. He looks harrowed, tormented, and Ten has never seen something so raw and unsettling. “I was severely injured in one of my missions, my knee was completely shattered. They implanted me with a new one, although I can’t say it’s the same.” 

With a heave, the abbot hoists his hammer up, the grooves on its head latching onto something thin and metallic. When Kun pulls his arm down, a metal panel flies open, and a ladder unfolds from above. A stream of candlelight penetrates the darkness, courtesy of the gold-trimmed chandelier hanging from the ceiling of the room above. 

“You two wait here. You are not to make any noise, or go anywhere until I open this hatch again, is that clear?”

“Crystal,” Johnny says. “Thank you, Kun.”

Kun nods his way, then his eyes shift to Ten. “Anything for you.”

He climbs up the ladder, and he disappears off into the room before reappearing in the gap above them. 

“Take this,” he says, extending his hand down to give them a lantern. The light becomes scarce once more as Kun closes the hatch behind him.

It’s a bit of a sour circumstance for a reunion, Ten thinks, but then again, people like them don’t get to have reunions at all, so he settles. Just seeing Kun’s face again is good enough. It’s more than enough.

“I’m glad we got to see Kun again,” Johnny says. “He’s changed, hasn’t he?”

“Yeah, he’s got kids now.”

Johnny snickers, and Ten smiles at the sound.

“He does, but I meant that he used to be a lot, I don’t know, warmer? Now he feels cold for some reason.”

“It comes with age,” Ten says, and the last word feels bitter on his tongue. “And you forget, Kun was an inquisitor too, just like me. That career choice alone is enough to strip someone of all the light in their eyes.”

“Well, I’m glad you were spared from the… stripping,” Johnny wiggles his eyebrows suggestively, and Ten can’t fight the giggle that comes bubbling up his throat. 

“Ugh, shut _up.”_ Ten says, with more fondness than bite, and when a pair of strong arms wrap around his waist, he doesn’t have the heart to resist. “What are you doing now?”

“Keeping you close.” Johnny looks at him so tenderly that Ten feels unworthy of it, almost. “I mean it, you know. You still have that fire in your eyes, after all these years. The one that makes me feel warm inside when our eyes meet. The one that makes me weak in the knees every time you look at me. The light that’s so beautifully defiant, as if you’re challenging the universe to tell you that you’re wrong.”

“Sometimes I am,” Ten says, finding solace in the crook of Johnny’s neck. Johnny laughs, a soft sound, and his warm breath tousles Ten’s hair as he tucks his chin over the top of the Ten’s head. 

“I thought I’d never see you again.”

When those words leave Johnny’s mouth, his arms tighten around Ten’s waist, and his chest rises and falls at a more erratic pace. With one shaky exhale, he says, “I’m so glad you found me.”

“You’re better off without me,” Ten says. He considers his next words, scared of saying anything that might leave even just a scratch on Johnny’s heart. “You’re in danger when you’re around me. If… if you get hurt, it’ll be my—”

“I chose to be here, understand? Me.” Johnny puts some distance between them, if only to look Ten in the eye. “You didn’t make that decision for me. I did. I could’ve told you to get lost, hell, I could’ve pointed a gun at you in that office, but I didn’t. Being with you was— _is_ what I want, and it’s what I chose. So stop apologizing, stop beating yourself up over something you had no hand in.”

Ten can only sigh. “You’re too good to be caught up in a mess like this.”

“I’ll tell you something, come on.” Johnny sits on the ground, legs criss-crossed. He motions for Ten to do the same, placing the lantern between them. “Remember the day we last saw each other? Selection day?”

-

**8 Years Ago**

Selection Day is the most important occasion of a progena’s life. It is both a testament to all they have achieved and a stepping stone to all they could ever hope to be. On this day, each progena will be designated a path, a career, and from then on, they’ll start toiling in earnest for their life’s work. Today is the day in which the commissars, inquisitors, generals, and administrators of the Imperium are decided, and the progena who’ve spent their whole lives training together will now know the bittersweet sting of parting from their brothers and sisters.

The ceremony has just finished, and the Schola is abuzz with the chatter and conversation of the newly-selected, but despite all the congratulations and celebration, something bitter still manages to take root. 

Johnny runs through the halls without much regard for the people he haphazardly bumps into. He can only think of one thing, wants only one thing at this moment. He loses himself when he comes across an intersection in the hallways, and suddenly the world is moving too fast and he struggles to organize the channels of his mind as they battle with the urges of his heart, and he stands among the chaos, among the sea of faces that he did not want to see and did not care for. There is only one person he cares for and Johnny just _can’t find him._

Then, he remembers.

“Rooftop,” he says to himself, and he’s bounding up the staircase two, three steps at a time, and he doesn’t slow down even when his lungs begin to burn, doesn’t let up when his legs begin to tire. 

When he slams open the metal door with a bang, that’s when he breathes, because Ten’s standing there, eyes skyward, hand in his pockets as the wind tousles his hair, his face glowing under the sun.

“Oh, thank the Emperor,” Johnny says breathlessly. 

Ten turns to look at him, and just when Johnny thought he couldn’t get any more beautiful, a fond smile lights up his face. Ten’s eyes gradually crinkle at the corners, the dimples on his cheeks dip, and it’s a sight Johnny wishes he can save for forever. 

“Calm down,” Ten says in between giggles, his voice soft as the breeze. He holds Johnny’s face in his hands, and his touch is so soft Johnny has to place his own hands against Ten’s to make sure they’re really there. “We still have time.”

“I’m not ready,” Johnny says, and it’s honest.

“No one ever is,” Ten says, and his fingers start carding through Johnny’s hair, his eyes scanning over Johnny’s face as if he was trying to memorize every detail. “I’m going to miss your stupid face.” 

Johnny has to hold Ten up by the waist as the latter tiptoes, pressing a kiss to Johnny’s forehead. He continues, “I’m going to miss your pretty eyes.”

Ten’s lips press warmly against his lids, and Johnny’s eyes flutter shut.

“Your cute nose,” and they both laugh quietly to themselves when Ten kisses the tip of Johnny’s nose, as if the passion and intimacy of this moment was their own little secret. Ten’s mouth wanders over to Johnny’s cheek. “Your adorable cheeks.”

Johnny closes his eyes, savors what he’s feeling right now, cherishes the way Ten fits perfectly in his arms.

“Those beautiful lips.” 

Ten’s voice is a whisper now, and when Johnny finally closes the distance between the two of them, Ten sighs into his mouth. The kiss is as desperate as it is passionate, and they find themselves getting greedier by the moment, as if the only right thing to do was to take in as much of the other person as humanly possible, because who knows when they’d get to be like this again? Who knows if they’ll even see each other again? After all, the Imperium is millions of worlds wide. The chances of them ever being this close to each other again is almost zero.

Then, Ten’s hands press against Johnny’s chest with urgency, and suddenly Johnny is being pushed away and Ten is pulling back. 

“You can’t,” Ten’s voice breaks, his eyes welling with tears he staunchly refuses to shed. “You _can’t_ kiss me like that when— when I don’t even know if I’m going to see you again. It’s too unfair, Johnny. It’s too _unfair.”_

Johnny’s heart shatters when the first tear slides down Ten’s cheek, and Ten wipes it away with the petulance of a child, harshly dragging the back of his hand against his face. 

“I know. I know it’s unfair.” Johnny says, gathering Ten in his arms again as if an embrace can sweep both their pains away. Ten is malleable this time, his limbs giving no resistance as Johnny tightens his hold on him. “But hey, you’re going to push through it, you hear me? Both of us will. Every time you miss me, you’re going to shove that feeling deep down and move forward. Every time you feel your heart clench, you’re going to keep your chin up, and you’re going to get over it. And every time you wish I was there with you, remember that I am. I’ll always be by your side. It doesn’t matter if you’re out in the Obscurus, or on Cadia, or on some shitty backwater planet. I am with you.”

“It won’t be enough,” Ten mutters into his shoulder. 

“No, of course not, but we don’t get to choose our destiny, do we? You told me that yourself.” It’s Johnny’s turn to cradle Ten’s face in his hands, and with soft strokes he wipes away Ten’s tears with the pads of his thumbs.

“I wish I never said that,” Ten says, and it’s as if a lump clogs his throat, as if he’s suppressing words struggling to break free. Then he decides, _‘fuck it’_ and just says it anyway. “What if we ran away? Just the two of us together.”

“What? Ten—”

“Think about it. We could make a living in Terra’s lower-end, where they can’t find us. We could have a tiny apartment to ourselves, could have a chance at life the way _we_ dreamed it.” Ten latches on to Johnny’s wrist. “We could make it work, I know we can.”

“Don’t let what we have keep you from the entire universe that waits for you out there, Ten. You’ve spent years working for this, and now you’re so close. _So close._ I won’t let you throw all that hard work away for me.” Johnny brings Ten’s hands up to his lips, dropping soft kisses on his knuckles. 

“Yeah,” Ten takes a deep breath and tries to steel himself. “Yeah, you’re right. That was just wishful thinking, that’s all it is.”

A deep rumble comes from the sky, and when they look up they find that the sun is being blotted by void ships descending from orbit. The watch on Ten’s wrist lights up with a notification.

“That’s me,” Ten says quietly, and he looks up at Johnny with a look as firm as brittle glass. “Time to leave.”

Johnny drops a kiss on Ten’s forehead, before kissing him senseless on the mouth one last time. They only stop when Ten laughs against Johnny’s lips and gently pushes him away. 

“You’re going to make me late,” Ten says, kissing Johnny on the cheek, his hand settling on Johnny’s chest. “Stay alive out there, commissar.”

Johnny watches as Ten walks away, and for a moment, the latter’s hand hovers over the handle of the door as if hesitating, but he pulls it open anyway, and it’s only when Ten’s halfway in that Johnny stops him.

“I miss you already!’ Johnny yells, and the smile on Ten’s face makes his heart swell.

“Love you always!” Ten yells back, and not even a second later, he’s gone.

Johnny turns in place, dazed from all the kissing, from all the emotions, from the prospect of an uncertain future. The grim darkness that awaits his tomorrow has always loomed there, has always been opaque. Johnny doesn’t know what awaits him come sunrise, doesn’t know what lies in the weeks that come. He doesn’t know who he’ll be in a year, or even a month. He doesn’t know which battlefield will be his last, or what scars he’ll have on his body in a few years. But he does know one thing.

Johnny is in love with the most amazing person who has the most amazing smile, and has the kind of personality that Johnny falls head over heels for. Ten is one of a kind, and if Johnny’s sure about anything, it’s that he’ll never find another Ten out there among the stars.

“Shit,” he says to himself, his feet already moving. 

He runs. 

The hallways of the Schola are deserted by now, and his loud footfalls bounce off the high ceilings, echoes through the long corridors. He can’t afford to be tired now, can’t risk being a second behind. So he runs as fast as he can, and he doesn’t stop even when his feet get weak enough to make him trip, doesn’t stop even when his knees buckle, when his thighs burn, when his legs cramp, because no amount of pain would be worth parting from the one thing he’s ever held dear. 

But when he gets to the hangars, he’s too late.

The transport glides off into the sky just as Johnny comes crashing through the entrance. 

“No.” An odd feeling creeps up in his gut. It surrounds his heart and blankets his chest until all he can feel is pain. He falls to his knees, head held low, and he lets his eyes get blurred by tears, lets those tears fall until they’re dripping on the ground. “No, no, _no.”_

“Damn you, Johnny.” He all but growls at himself in frustration, his voice torn and roughened by anger, hurt, and all these other things he can’t name but can _feel._

He lets himself cry that day, lets himself drown in anguish, because he’s just made the biggest mistake of his life. He let the only thing he loved slip right past his fingers. 

\- 

“I realized it too late back then, but I know now.” Johnny’s voice is quiet, as if he was reliving some unbearable pain. “The only thing I want is to be with you. I let you go once. I won’t ever do it again.”

Ten remembers Selection Day like it was yesterday, recalls the pain of holding his tears back when he boarded that transport and realized there was no turning back. 

“We were young and clueless,” Ten says, not quite present. “There’s nothing we can do about the mistakes we’ve made. If only there was some time machine that could unravel the years we’ve left behind. The one thing we can do is move forward, like you told me. Move forward and make sure that you don’t make the same mistake twice. We’re together now, that’s what matters.”

Ten takes Johnny’s hand in his.

“Listen, Johnny, I have to tell you something. It’s about why this mess is happening in the first place.”

Johnny regards him with a curious look. “I’m all ears.”

“A year ago, I was on a mission. It was pretty routine, the type of mission I’d done plenty of times before. The usual eliminate unsanctioned psykers and hand over psychic children to the Arbites for transfer to the Scholas. Fighting my way past the guards and the psykers was easy enough, but when I got to the children, I was told that the Arbites weren’t coming,” Ten stops, his throat drying up. “—the Arbites weren’t coming and I had to kill them.”

“And did you?”

“I had no other choice, Johnny,” Ten says, voice small. There’s a dam threatening to break, and he’s buckling under the pressure of keeping it together. “And yet despite that, the Inquisition came after me anyway. All those children died for nothing.”

There’s only silence. Ten doesn’t dare look Johnny in the eye, for fear of finding something like disgust or repulsion written on his face. He takes the quiet as his cue to continue.

“The worst part is that I see them every time I close my eyes. Those horrified faces. I can hear them crying every time there’s a beat of silence. And I spend every waking moment absolutely _hating_ myself for doing something so _disgusting.”_ Ten doesn’t even realize that he’s crying until Johnny’s calloused hand wipes his tears away. Ten leans into his touch instinctively. “You have every right to detest me now that you know this.” 

“I could never bring myself to think ill of you. Do you know why?”

Ten shakes his head.

“Because you’re not the man who killed those children. That was the monster that the Inquisition created, the one they conditioned and engineered to be everything you aren’t. This,” Johnny gestures to Ten. “This is you. So scarred by the crimes you committed with a forced hand. Believe me, Ten, you’re more than an inquisitor. You’re more than what the Inquisition made of you.”

“Sometimes that’s hard to believe.”

“Until you can believe in that a hundred percent, I’ll be here to remind you that under that cold-blooded exterior, you’re just as human as the rest of us.”

Johnny shifts so that he’s beside Ten instead of across from him, and he takes Ten’s fingers, locks it around his own. Johnny thinks that for all the ugly things they’ve done, their entwined hands looked beautiful together. 

They’re bathed in pale golden light as the hatch opens.

-

**Meanwhile**

Kun closes the metal hatch behind him, unfurling the carpet over it while praying to the Emperor that no one finds the two fugitives he’s storing under a secret exit under his office. He rummages through the drawers of his desk until he finds the parchment he was looking for. It arrived mysteriously days ago, signed under the name of some KDY. Kun brings it up to view, reading through its contents until he has a plan in mind. 

He must get to the library. But, before that—

Someone knocks on the door, not even waiting for the abbot to grant them entry before they push it open. A stormtrooper stands in the doorway.

“The Inquisitor Lord wishes to see you.”

“Of course,” Kun smiles politely, sneaking the parchment back into his drawer. “I’ll see him right away.”

-

“Ah, Abbot Prime,” the door shuts with an ominous slam. “Have a seat. Tell me what happened.” 

The inquisitor lord speaks in a menacing way, and Kun doesn’t think it’s intentional. His drawl, his tone, it just naturally drips with venom.

“As you expected, my lord, the inquisitor and the commissar are a formidable pair.” Kun sits down, crosses his hands over the surface of the table. “Me and my team were no match for them.”

“And? Where are they now?”

“They were expecting to be granted entry to the Schola, they have nowhere left to go. My guess would be that they’re still in the sewers, my lord.”

“Mm, I would assume so as well,” Taemin stands up, his clothing draping down his form like streams of shadow. Taemin takes slow steps towards him, looming closer until Kun can feel his presence over his shoulder. “You’re doing the Emperor a great service by helping to hunt down these traitors.” 

“And what shall the Inquisitor Lord do now?” Kun swallows, praying to the Emperor that the inquisitor won’t notice the hammering of his heartbeat in his chest. 

“Why, go on a hunt, of course. Until I’m back, the Schola is on lockdown. It’ll be in your best interests to stay in one place, abbot.” Taemin strides over to the door, black cloak billowing behind him. “Why not retreat to your quarters, make yourself a cup of tea. You have a long night ahead of you.” 

The door opens and shuts before Kun could even breathe, and when he’s finally alone, he waits for a few moments before getting on his feet.

He scuffles down the Schola’s hallways as fast as he can, silently cursing his dysfunctional knee for slowing him down. He stops when he arrives at an intersection, the inquisitor’s voice echoing off the tall domed ceiling of the Schola’s main atrium. He flattens himself against a wall until they empty out into the streetfront in search of the nearest manhole. 

It takes him several minutes to reach the Schola’s library. Kun remembers the disguise of the Imperial Lodge, remembers the tall bookshelves and the elaborate chandeliers. Such simple elegance was only surpassed by the beauty of the Schola’s grand library. 

The only thing standing in between Kun and those books was a squad of stormtroopers guarding the entrance. 

Seven men, armed to the brim with elite weaponry and equipment. 

Kun tries to walk past them without saying a word, hoping that they’ll recognize him as the abbot prime and cut him some slack. But as always, the odds have never been on his side. 

“Hey,” a stormtrooper warns, blocking Kun’s path with the length of his rifle. “No one’s allowed in here. Inquisitor Lord’s orders. You shouldn’t be roaming around.” 

Kun considers his chances. He has never been the best at combat, be it ranged or close-up. He was well-balanced, not quite a powerhouse but an ace. You know what they say:

Jack of all trades, master of none. 

Oftentimes better than a master of one. 

Kun takes a few steps back, and at a blurring speed, he lunges with the flat head of his hammer pointed forward, and it slams into the stormtrooper’s chest, cracking the armor over it and several bones beneath. The stormtrooper is sent flying into the library. With a precise jab, Kun uses the butt of his hammer to collapse another trooper’s throat. Then, he thrusts the hammer in the opposite direction, smashing a trooper’s face into the back of his skull. Those at a distance rain hell upon him with their lasguns, and Kun twirls his hammer so as to create an impenetrable shield, using its head to expertly deflect their lasbeams back at them. The troopers fall, their flesh and armor melted off by their own gunfire. Fast as lightning, he closes the distance between him and the nearest stormtrooper, and as he bolts forward he preps his hammer for an upward swing, and when the adamantium connects with the trooper’s chin, the force of the impact alone completely tears the trooper’s head from his neck, sending the decapitated head flying upwards. Finally, Kun spins, throwing his entire weight into the momentum of his movement, and just as the last stormtrooper brings his gun up to fire at the abbot, Kun releases his hammer. It’s a blur as it flies across the room. It slams into the stormtrooper with a nauseating squelch, and it crushes his abdomen against the wall until his entire stomach area disappears and blood explodes in all directions and the stormtrooper’s upper body is no longer connected to the rest of his parts. 

Kun pulls his hammer out from where it buried itself in the wall. The stormtrooper falls to the ground, falling face flat into a puddle of his own guts. 

“Fuck,” he swears under his breath, and he tries to catch his breathing as he ventures into the library. It’s been quite some time since he fought like that, and if he’s being honest with himself, Kun didn’t know he still had it in him. 

He navigates the library’s many aisles until he comes to one labeled _‘Ancient Artefacts’_ , and he has to use a ladder to reach the book he’s after. It takes Kun a great deal of effort to pull the thick tome out of the shelf, and when he finally manages to set it down on a nearby table, a cloud of dust congests the air. Kun stifles a sneeze.

The words “Lost, Forbidden, and Obsolete Technologies” stare back at him with thin serif letters. Kun quickly flips the pages until he finds what he’s looking for. 

The book is old, its paper thin, brittle and browned by time. The bindings are coming unraveled. The ink that holds onto it is fragile, as if one harsh swipe of the hand could completely wipe the page clean. He tears several pages out the book, the ones containing schematics, and paragraphs of words and a mess of calculations. 

He hurries back to his office, and when he gets there he pulls the carpet back and opens the metal hatch, finding Ten and Johnny sitting right below him like two school children scared of the dark. 

“Get up here, hurry.”

-

“A pharos?” Ten looks at Kun quizzically, as if the meaning of the word could be divined from Kun’s face.

“It seems to be an ancient device once used by a forgotten civilization we call the Necrons.”

“Wait, hold on,” Johnny interrupts. “Where did you even find this? _How_ is it that you know about this?” 

“A friend of Ten’s contacted me days prior to your arrival. He sent me a letter, told me that he tried to escape too once, and that this device could have helped him if only he was able to find it. He didn’t give me his name, only his initials. Do you know a KDY?”

“Doyoung,” Ten says, and he wishes he could thank Doyoung, wishes he could’ve at least hugged the other man the last time they saw each other.

“He didn’t find it?” Johnny asks.

“No, I don’t believe he did. Besides, the chances of finding one is nearly zero, and even if you could manage that, putting it to use would be impossible, it’s far too ancient and arcane a technology. Its nature alone is one which we have not yet come to fully understand.” Kun unfurls the pages on his desk, paying no mind to the stationery he knocks over. “See, here it says that one pharos functioned as part of an array of seven more. Simply, what a pharos does is harness psychic energy to produce a navigational beacon. One that allows void ships to travel into the warp and out through a safe path. Now, what else does that?” 

“The Astronomican,” Ten realizes. 

“Correct,” Kun says with a smile. “Essentially, a pharos fulfills the purposes of the Astronomican, although at a smaller scale. You could flee to the farthest reaches of space, but if you do so through the Astronomican, you can still technically be tracked. By using a pharos; your own beacon—“

“We could disappear,” Ten looks at Johnny. “They wouldn’t be able to find us. Not the Inquisition, not anyone else. The Imperium is millions of worlds strong. It’ll take them an eternity to get to us.” 

“You said getting our hands on a pharos would be impossible,” Johnny says, turning to Kun. “How are we going to pull this off, then?”

“You could, with a fine engineer, create something that emulates a pharos. The original devices were powered with immense sources of energy, shards that used to form part of an ancient race of powerful beings. If you could create something that adheres to the principles of a pharos, and power it with something like a sufficiently powerful pulsed plasma generator, you could have a means of permanent escape.” 

“You’re a genius, Kun,” Johnny says, and Kun winks at him, smiling in self-satisfaction.

“I know. Now all you have to do is find yourselves an engineer, and a psyker to navigate you through the warp. We wouldn’t want you to be consumed by the demonic entities of chaos in the Immaterium now, do we?” 

Kun folds the pages up and hands them to Ten.

“No we don’t,” Ten says decisively. “Engineer first, psyker second. This pharos thing seems really complicated, do you know where we could find someone who can make it?” 

Johnny raises a brow. “Where? There’s only one place in the whole galaxy where we could find one. The Red Planet, Mars.”

“Home of the Adeptus Mechanicus,” Kun says.

“Home of our _engineer,”_ Ten corrects. “If we’re to get to Mars, we better get moving.”

“It would be best,” Kun says, already ushering them to the door. “The Inquisition is searching the sewers for you two, and it’d do us all good not to get caught when they come back. There’s a speeder in the garage, I’ll see you off.” 

The garage is as dark as the sewers, its surfaces collecting dust. The moonlight streams in through what little openings there were on the walls, casting a silver light upon the dark corners that the light could reach. 

Kun throws the drapes off a speeder, forcing dust into the air. 

“Here,” Kun says, dropping a paper bag into Ten’s hands. Ten peers into it, sees canned food and bottles of water. 

“Kun.” Ten looks up at him, his eyes conveying as much gratefulness as he can muster. “Thank you. For everything.” 

“Keep yourself well fed. No use in going against the system on an empty stomach, hm?”

Ten wraps his arms around Kun, encases him in a tight embrace. When he pulls back, Kun leaves a warm kiss on his forehead. 

“I wish you the best, Ten,” Kun says, voice dropping to a whisper. “I hope you find everything you’re looking for.” 

“I hope so too. Good luck with your kids. I know you raised them well.” 

Kun smiles fondly. “Off you go.” 

Kun walks over to a panel on the wall, and at the press of a button, the garage door starts dragging open. Ten jumps into the speeder, Johnny already at the driver’s seat. The engine comes to life with a low hum. 

“You take care of my best friend, Seo!” Kun says, the garage door opening to its fullest with a click.

“You know I will,” Johnny replies, coolly saluting Kun before pressing on the gas.

And just like that, they speed off into the streets of Terra, and in seconds they disappear into the night. 

Kun closes the garage door, and only when the garage is drowned in shadow once more does he begin to move. A cold feeling creeps up the depths of his being. Whether it was longing, or sadness, or pain, he did not know. Still, there was a light in all this darkness, a warm flame in the eternal winter that is his life.

If Kun’s last act was to help the man he loves escape from this cruel Imperium, then so be it. It needn’t matter if his feelings were unrequited. For Ten, Kun decides, he’d face even death. 

Kun sees only one end to this grim, dark night, and he fears it no longer. 

-

When Kun opens the door to his office, he finds that there’s someone else sitting in his chair.

“You’re not as sly as you think you are, _Abbot,”_ Taemin sneers, his eyes becoming all the more predatory. In his hand, Doyoung’s letter. “I found quite some interesting things in your desk.” 

Taemin throws the letter to the side, before fishing something out from Kun’s drawer. He holds a familiar seal in his hand, one of the only material things Kun has imbued value into. The Inquisitorial Rosette, granted to him when he was first christened as Inquisitor. Taemin pockets it. 

“You’re no longer deserving of this, therefore I relieve you of it.” 

“They’re already gone,” Kun says, simply. “This battle has already been won.” 

“I’m afraid not.” 

Kun has a millisecond to raise the head of his hammer as a bullet flies straight for his head. It bounces off the adamantium, burying itself in a nearby wall. He twirls the hammer in his hand as the inquisitor unleashes a punishing barrage of bullets at him, and the bullets are deflected in a calculated manner, being sent back in the direction of their origin until Taemin has to take cover behind a desk, the wallpaper on the parallel wall getting torn off by bullet holes. Kun uses the opportunity to dash forward and bring the head of his hammer smashing into the desk, forcing Taemin out from behind it right before it crashes harshly into the wall. Wood and splinters fly around. 

Kun spins around, throwing his weight into the motion, and he brings his hammer around to crash full force into Taemin, who can only bring up the blade of his power sword in defense. Electricity crackles between the two weapons at contact, and Kun recoils as Taemin gets thrown into a nearby bookshelf. 

To Kun’s surprise, Taemin recovers instantly, and the abbot is forced to go on the defensive as Taemin wears away at him with repeated slashes of his sword. Taemin feints an overhead strike with his sword so that Kun would raise his arms to bring his hammer to counter, and at the last second, Taemin ducks instead, scoring a punishing blow with the elbow to the space above Kun’s stomach. The abbot retches violently, doubling over. 

Taemin grabs the handle of Kun’s hammer, wrestling it out of his hands and discarding it to the side with relative ease. With his other hand, he takes Kun’s face and slams the back of his head against the wall. 

“You’re rusty,” Taemin muses, and he watches as the abbot crumples to the ground, and with blood dripping down the back of his neck he tries to crawl away. Taemin laughs deeply, an unnerving sound.

He takes the heel of his boot and presses it against the back of Kun’s right knee.

“I read about your injury in your file.” Taemin applies pressure, and a guttural scream rips out of Kun’s throat. “You shoved a colleague out of the way of an exploding landmine. It cost you your knee.”

“This time, however, is different.” Taemin presses down with his foot until he can hear several cracks, a sound surpassed in pure horrificness only by the abbot’s shrieking. “Your desire to save everyone is admirable. But this time, it will cost you your life.”

Taemin drags Kun by the collar to a nearby chair, all but throwing the abbot upon it. He levels his bolter at Kun's head, the barrel pressing harshly against the abbot's bloodied skin.

“Any last words, traitor?”

Kun looks up at him through the blood-drenched hair falling into his eyes. He spits at Taemin. 

“Rot in he—” 

Blood splatters the floor.

-

Deep in Terra, and even deeper into the night, a certain Kim Doyoung struggles with the complexities of paperwork.

"Damn this," he mutters under his breath, closing the lid of his laptop with a frustrated sigh. "I'll finish you tomorrow."

He wanders into the kitchen, and he's pouring himself a generous glass of red wine when he hears a sound that makes his blood run cold.

A click.

A gun being cocked.

Doyoung's eyes dart to the distant doorway. It was concealed in darkness. 

Just as an arm creeps out from the shadows, bolter in hand, Doyoung's vision adjusts to the lack of light, and his eyes widen.

Then, a gunshot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im so sorry,, dont be shy drop that kudos,, and a comment maybe


	4. IV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You look like hell,” Taeyong says plainly, his tone not matching the concern in his eyes. Ten replies with a snort and a meek ‘thanks’. “Of all the ships in the Imperial Navy, please enlighten me as to why you ended up on mine?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and so i return. i wasn’t sure I’d have it in me to update after the last chapter, but here i am! i hope u enjoy this one, although it won’t be as action packed. but that’s not necessarily a bad thing ;)

Johnny pulls the speeder up at a forgotten alley, the moldy concrete rising around them almost as dark as the thick cover of night. Not even Luna could reach her light here. An uneasy feeling eats at Ten from within, cold and stark like the metal of his holstered bolter that he holds on to for comfort.

“Will Kun be alright, do you think?” Ten asks, barely making out the figure of Johnny opening the speeder’s trunk and rummaging through its contents.

Johnny slings a bundle of rope around his shoulder. “He’ll manage, you know him. He wouldn’t want you to worry about him either. Best you can do for him is put him at ease by getting off Terra.”

Ten sighs, dispelling the worry clouding his mind. “You’re right,” he says, barely a murmur. He leads them out the other end of the alley, bringing into view the bulky exterior of an Imperial base. Its outer walls were a good two stories high off the ground, and grey watchtowers rose from its battlements, housing spotlights that reached far into Terra’s night sky. Guards stood watch atop the walls.

Ten loads a magazine into his bolter. “Here’s the plan. First, we wait for the guards on the wall to rotate, then we climb. We take out the incoming guards and find the nearest power generator. We disable it, everything goes dark for a few minutes, and we steal onto a ship.”

Ten feels Johnny loom over his shoulder, his each exhale brushing warmly against Ten’s ear.

“Sounds simple enough, but how do you suggest we leave orbit? We could steal a ship, but if the Inquisition has alerted the fleet above Terra about us, and they have, we’ll only get as far as back on the ground. As heaps of burning metal.”

“Taeyong,” Ten says simply. An inquisitive sound comes from the back of Johnny’s throat. “Our escape,” Ten smiles at Johnny from over his shoulder. “A dear friend of mine. We go way back to my fresh Inquisition days, and he’ll take a bullet for me just as I will for him. He can be trusted. He let it slip that he’s leaving Terra tonight, by way of an entire destroyer under his command, and we’re going to use that to our advantage. You’re not shabby at sneaking around, are you?”

Johnny is tall, muscled, and if you get a good look at his face, it’s hard to tear your eyes away. At least, Ten thinks so. But subtle feline strength courses through those lanky limbs of his, and Johnny could move just as fast as Ten if he wanted to.

“I can make myself scarce. I’ve been on more battlefields than sixty men can count on their fingers, and there’s more to it than shooting everyone in sight. We had to crawl through trenches, sneak into enemy camps in the dead of midnight. I’m no amateur,” Johnny says all of this in a way only a veteran ever could.

Ten nods. “Let’s get on with it then.”

-

Scaling the wall was easy enough, and dealing with the guards was mere child's play.

“D’you think the Inquisition will know where we are?” Johnny finishes dumping an unconscious guard into a corner where no one will find him, at least for a few hours. He doesn’t break a sweat, even as he piles another guard on to the now-crowded corner. He steals one of the guard's pistols, as his own had been regretfully lost in the sewers beneath the Schola.

Ten had managed to find a map of the base, and he surveys it with critical eyes. He shakes his head absently. “Not unless we take our time. The power generator’s deeper in than I expected. We’ll have to be extra sneaky, or we’ll have several platoons of guardsmen gunning us down before we can even breathe in the ship’s direction.”

Ten leads them down a staircase that led them away from the wall and down a sterile hallway. They barely get past a camera on the far end of the wall, skirting just around the edge of its view, taking advantage of its blindspot. “Let’s head over to the security chamber, taking their defenses out could buy us some time.”

“Couldn’t we ask your Taeyong friend for help?”

“Best that he doesn’t know about us until the last minute. A failsafe, if you will, in case he decides to throw us off his ship halfway up the atmosphere.”

They turn into another hallway, and at the end lies a set of hydraulic metal doors. The lone guard beside it startles when he sees them, and Ten throws his knife at him with deadly accuracy, making a cutting sound through the air. The guard has long collapsed to the ground when the pair reaches the door, courtesy of the knife in between his eyes.

“I thought you said we could trust him?” Johnny ungloves the guard’s hand, dragging it up to the panel on the wall for a handprint scan. The guard lies limp like a ragdoll at his hold.

Ten retrieves the knife from the guard’s forehead just as the doors open with a hiss. “Well,” he chuckles nervously. “Inquisitors are unpredictable.”

“I noticed,” Johnny says, an indiscernible smile on his lips. He draws his gun, and Ten does too.

The indignated protests of the Imperial personnel at their unexpected arrival was cut short.

Ten runs toward the nearest man, knocking him senseless with the hilt of his bolter. He uses the man as a makeshift silencer, pressing the barrel of his gun harshly against his stomach and unleashing half the magazine on everyone else inside. Each crackle of gunfire was successfully dampened, if only slightly, and each pull of the trigger was accompanied by the corresponding spasms of the man in Ten’s arms. Soon the consoles and monitors in Ten’s half of the room were splattered crimson.

He looks over at Johnny, finding that he’d made much less of a mess. The personnel he’d dealt with were slumped over in their stations, whether they were dead or simply unconscious, Ten did not know. Johnny had already made his way to the main console, making quick work of disabling the security systems.

“Good work.” Ten pats Johnny on the shoulder. “Let’s go.”

Ten doesn’t miss the way Johnny looks at the bloody side of the room; with barely hidden contempt and an uncomfortable glint to his eye. Ten shoves down the gnawing feeling it set out on his insides.

They manage to reach the power generator without much of a fuss, only taking out less than a dozen guards on the way. Disabling it wasn’t much of an obstacle as well, a few presses on the console had sent the generator into a reboot cycle. They have ten minutes to spare before power comes back on.

Even in the darkness, Taeyong’s ship couldn’t be missed. A ship-sized opening on the high ceiling allowed for the moonlight to cast its scarce silver light upon it. Johnny’s small intake of breath echoes from behind Ten.

“Is that—”

“A Cobra-class destroyer? Yeah.” Ten couldn’t hold back his awe either. The Cobra, even being the smallest ship in the Imperial Navy, was no tiny vessel. It stretched well past Ten’s line of vision, its stern concealed in the shadow. Its prow was shaped like the head of an arrow split in half, and it was tall enough to be covered by a painful crane of the neck. Johnny and Ten were ants compared to the size of this thing.

Confused personnel milled about near the ship’s lowest deck, where it’s been tethered to its berth by massive beams of magnetic metal.

With more than a little sneaking around and lightness of feet, Johnny and Ten were able to stow themselves away into an open cargo hold. It takes them a few more moments to get settled behind a row of large crates and metal containers, and the power comes back on just as Ten takes off his coat.

Static cuts through the air, followed by a monotone voice booming from the speakers attached to the walls.

“Mandatory security checks are nearing completion. Crew must be at their appointed stations at this time. Any and all active bridge personnel are advised not to leave their posts.”

Ten lays his coat down on the floor. “We should be safe here,” he says, reclining against the cold metal wall with a tired exhale. “Looks like the hold is full, they’d have completed the security checks down here by now. I think we should get some rest before facing Taeyong. At least until we’re far away enough from the ground.”

Johnny hums an affirmative. His eyes held a glaze of contemplation, swirling with thoughts that Ten couldn’t begin to decipher. Johnny settles beside him as a creak wracks the ship; the massive cargo bay doors grinding to a close. Ten feels the urge to lean closer to Johnny, to blur the lines of personal space between them, but he recalls the look in Johnny’s eyes back in the security chamber, and he hesitates.

“Johnny?” He calls, sounding every bit unsure as he feels.

Johnny turns his head to look at him. Ten daren’t look back. “Hmm?”

“I saw how you looked at what I did back there.”

The silence that follows is loaded, delicate, and intense all at once. Ten can feel the hammering of his heart, can feel the fear of being repudiated, of being scorned by the man beside him. When the ship trembles as the engines come to life, Ten trembles with it. The fear he feels is irrational, yet very, very real.

“I think,” Johnny says carefully, diverting his eyes to his fidgeting fingers. “That you’ve spent too long being an Inquisitor.”

Ten opens his mouth to say something, but Johnny continues.

“Those people back there were unarmed. Practically defenseless. You pull the trigger like it’s as easy as breathing. You put bullets in people as effortlessly as you blink. You’ve been heartless,” Johnny admits bluntly. “and I think the incident with the psychic children only made it worse. When I was a commissar, each bullet was important. Each shot I fired was held off until the last moment, as a last resort. We were taught that only when words fail, only when all else fails were we to load that pistol. Only when the coward fails to see reason do we pull the trigger. It’s hardly the same situation you’re in, or have been in. Maybe comparing the both of us may be pointless. As much as I love you, I know practically nothing of you, at least the person you’ve become during the years we were apart. I know nothing about what you did for a living, or if you even lived at all. I can only assume what kind of torment has made you into the person you are right now, but I know one thing. You have to untrain yourself. Undo what the Inquisition taught you.”

Ten couldn’t speak, couldn’t think of anything to say. He can only stare at the harrowed leather of his boots as vile shame wraps itself around the depths of his being.

“I want to help you,” Johnny says softly, and Ten almost doesn’t hear it over the sound of the ship lifting slowly off the ground. “And I intend to, alright? I don’t blame you, or think any less of you. I refuse to let you get consumed by your demons.”

A firm hand forces Ten to look Johnny in the eye. And there he doesn’t find disgust, or repulsion, or any kind of despicable thing held towards him. Ten only finds the same warmth in those deep browns. He finds something genuine in Johnny’s gaze, and Ten doesn’t know what to call it. He only knows that he could drown in it, could revel in it.

Johnny doesn’t seem to be expecting a reply, so Ten doesn’t speak. And when firm arms bring Ten closer, he holds on tight.

A patch of Ten’s head is warmed by a gentle kiss. Maybe he’s not ready to let his guard down yet, can’t find it in himself to unravel the tenseness in his muscles should there be a need to get up and make a run for it. Nonetheless, he tries to focus on this moment, tries to humanize himself in his own eyes. There’s bitterness when he can’t. But Johnny’s arm is around him so he focuses on that instead.

He tries to match Johnny’s draws of breath, if only to calm himself.

When the lights die down in the cargo hold, and when the ship rattles as it makes its ascent into orbit, Ten finds that there’s more on his mind than ever, and more turmoil within him than he thinks he can handle.

-

Johnny didn’t know he’d fallen asleep until he’s awakened by a rather aggressive flashlight being shined in his eyes. He looks down at Ten, who bears no sign of being able to rest. If anything, he looks more tired.

“Well,” says a cool voice. “What a surprise.”

Ten blinks focus back into his eyes and stands at once. Johnny’s vision slowly adjusts to the lighting, and the face in front of him becomes clearer with each blink.

Flanked by two guards, the man in front of them was possessed of a sharp face with sharp angles and very prominent features. Johnny’s attention is drawn to his eyes though. They were round, wide, and so very capable of expression. Johnny’s willing to be that that pair is more expressive than any other set of eyes he’s ever seen. His jet black hair was slicked back, and for some reason it gave him an uncanny air of intimidation. Something hung loosely from one of his coat pockets, something akin to a rosarius, except the imagery of the God-Emperor is replaced by an I with a prominent skull engraved into the middle.

“You must be Taeyong,” Johnny says, and the man’s eyes snap toward him. He eyes Johnny’s extended hand disinterestedly. “I’m Johnny. Ten said we could trust you.”

Taeyong’s eyebrows rise slightly, nodding once, slowly.

“He did, did he?” He looks back at Ten and tilts his head. He sighs, and waves off the guards. Only now does Johnny notice that they had their guns pointed at them the entire time, but now they stand down at the Inquisitor Lord’s behest. “Let’s take this to the brig.”

-

Johnny notes that Taeyong’s clothing is near-identical to Ten’s, except for the slightest differences. He had more shine to him, more gallantry in his fabric. It’s this slight difference that sets them apart by rank. It was peculiar, but Johnny knew better than to question the ways of the Inquisition.

Ten has been awfully quiet, Johnny notes. Ever since he’d dumped all that information on him, the other man seemed to be consumed by some kind of inner turmoil. Johnny doesn’t blame him, he’d probably have reacted the same. Yet, he ignores the pang of guilt in him, because Ten needed to hear what he had to say. It’s for his own good.

Taeyong ushers the pair into a holding cell clearly meant for prisoners, but makes no move to detain them.

“Leave us,” Taeyong dismisses his escorts, and when the door shuts with a thud, it’s only the three of them left alone in the tiny room.

It’s awfully grey in here, not a single drop of color and only an abundance of metal and the coldness that seeped from it.

When Taeyong exhales, it’s as if he sheds an icy facade he’s used to keeping up, the one he maintains for colleagues and subordinates. But Ten, Johnny assumes, is not just a colleague, and certainly not a subordinate.

“You look like hell,” Taeyong says plainly, his tone not matching the concern in his eyes. Ten replies with a snort and a meek ‘thanks’. “Of all the ships in the Imperial Navy, please enlighten me as to why you ended up on mine?”

“Any other ship’s captain would have ejected us into space, or handed us over to the Inquisition, for starters.” Ten tries to look apologetic, at least. “And there’s somewhere we need to go that only you could take us to.”

“And where might this place be?”

“Mars,” Johnny answers. “Can you?”

Taeyong regards him curiously. “There’s not much that I cannot do, not to brag, so the answer to that is yes. For what reason?”

Ten hands Taeyong the blueprints for the pharos. “We need a machine that’ll allow us to escape.”

Taeyong gasps, and it sounds more like a hiccup. “Escape? Emperor Almighty, how are you going to manage that?”

Ten gestures to the papers in Taeyong’s hands. “It’s all in there.”

It takes Taeyong a while to digest the information, and when he speaks again he hasn’t shed that layer of skepticism in his tone.

“Forgive me for taking this with more than a pinch of salt, but you do realize that Mars is closed off to everyone but the very members of the Adeptus Mechanicus, which none of us are?”

“Oh, Yongie,” Ten drawls, smiling like he has something up his sleeve. Johnny raises an eyebrow at the nickname. “That’s where you come in.”

“You can’t call me that,” Taeyong says suddenly, and Johnny realizes it was directed at him. Taeyong narrows his eyes at him. “Don’t get too comfy, I have my doubts about you. I’ll only do you this favor for Ten’s sake.”

“Of course,” Johnny says, confused and taken aback but not wanting to set off the other man. “I wouldn’t even think of it.”

He fixes Johnny with once-over, and when Taeyong looks back at Ten, his eyes are softer. Johnny marvels at just how much emotion he can show with one gaze.

Taeyong sighs again, which he seems to be doing a lot of. “I can get us close to Mars, just out of orbit. I can cloak the ship right before we come within sensor range, and we can take one of the thunderhawks to the Ring of Iron. Nothing bigger, or we’re all going to be blasted. Now tell me, who's going to build you this machine?”

“Uh,” Ten falters. “We don’t know yet actually. We were planning to figure that out when we get there.”

“When you get there—” Taeyong hisses under his breath, pinching the bridge of his nose. “It’s a miracle you’ve made it this far.” He seems to think for a moment, then he huffs. “You’re lucky you ended up on my ship. I know someone who can build something like that.”

“You do?” Ten’s eyes light up with curiosity. “How did you manage a connection within the AdMech?”

“Long story,” comes the quiet answer. “You wouldn’t want to know. It’s quite gruesome, actually. Now, follow me, I’ll get you fixed up in an empty bed chamber. We have plenty, this ship is surprisingly understaffed.”

“You could trust my crew not to sell you out to the Inquisition,” Taeyong tells them a few hallways later. “Their loyalties lie with me, not the Inquisition, nor the Imperium. Perks of handpicking your own crew. These men and women are about the most unbrainwashed of the Navy, if you could believe it.”

When they reach their supposed quarters, Johnny is surprised when Taeyong asks him to stay behind for a private conversation. He casts a glance at Ten who reassures him with a tiny smile.

“You’ll be alright,” Ten had whispered, already halfway through the doorway, hand squeezing Johnny’s shoulder for good measure.

When the door slides shut behind Ten, Taeyong fixes Johnny with a firm stare that goes on for a very long while. Johnny has never felt more uncomfortable. It felt as if every bit of him was being criticized with utmost scrutiny.

“You’d better not do him wrong,” Taeyong says, breaking the silence. His voice was layered with a threat that goes unspoken but certainly not unfelt. “He’s too damaged, that idiot. So fragile under that thick skin of his. Sometimes I fear that he’s been pushed too far over the edge, but every time I’m wrong. It only scares me even more, because I’ve seen what happens to Inquisitors who go sideways. He hasn’t reached the breaking point yet but he’s well on the way. They lose themselves to the madness, and they’re left a shell of what they once were. Unrecognizable, unfeeling. The only damned thing they’re good for by then is unrestrained murder. They’re sent off to the Assassinorum, converted into those… monsters. No one ever sees them again, primarily because only dead people walking are bound to see that kind of Assassin. They’re worse than Inquisitors, because they’ve not a mind of their own anymore.”

Taeyong has a faraway look in his eyes as he spoke, but he looks back at Johnny with terrifying clarity. “So I’m counting on you to keep him from going over the edge. I… trust Ten’s judgement. If he thinks you’re a good man, then you are.”

“Thank you,” is about all Johnny could manage. “And I won’t let him go down that path. You have my word.”

“Keep that word or I’ll kill you.”

Something in Johnny told him that Taeyong wasn’t lying.

“I think I ought to cut you some slack, actually,” Taeyong admits then. “Few people would drop everything and run for a person they hadn’t seen in years. You’re either crazy, or madly in love.”

Johnny finds the heart to chuckle. “The latter, I think,” Then he makes up his mind. “No, I’m certain.”

There’s a ghost of a smile on Taeyong’s lips. “Absolutely disgusting. Now go, get some rest. Make sure Ten gets some too. We’ve got quite a few hours between us and Mars, and by the time the Inquisition finds out about us, we’ll be out of reach. Temporarily, at least.”

Taeyong moves to walk away, but Johnny keeps him for longer.

“You’re doing the same thing I did, by letting us stay on this ship,” Johnny states. He doesn’t know why he says it, only that he felt the need to. “Putting your life at risk. I wish I could thank you with more than just words.”

“Thank me by making sure Ten gets some shut-eye.” Then, he seems to debate whether or not he should say something more. “A lot of people feel the same, I think. About Ten, I mean. He’s just like that, so effortlessly able to sink his way into your heart. It’s unusual, given our lives and circumstances. Most people are stripped of their more humanizing ideals. You and I included. Somehow, Ten is not, and I think that’s what makes it special. That’s what makes us want to protect him even more. He’s got a heart, that one. And that already makes him better than the rest of us. You’re a good man, Johnny. You sticking by him the way you do is enough to put you in my good graces.”

“I’m honored,” Johnny says honestly, and Taeyong smiles at him then. It’s more of a smile with the eyes, and Johnny thinks it rather endearing. Then, for humor’s sake, he asks, “Does that mean I can call you Yongie now?”

“Don’t push it,” Taeyong grits through his teeth, although Johnny swears he can see his shoulders shake with suppressed laughter as he walks away.

When he walks inside the room, he finds Ten sitting on the edge of the only bed in the room, and something tells Johnny that Taeyong gave them this room on purpose.

“The walls aren’t very thick on this ship,” says Ten with a light smile on his face, and he looks up at Johnny with a vulnerable stare.

“You heard every word,” Johnny realizes. “Then I hope you know not one word of it is a lie. Not one word that left my mouth, and I’m willing to bet that Taeyong was being very truthful too.”

Ten seems to want to say a thousand things, but he settles for just, “I’m glad.”

“You’ll get better,” Johnny says then, and he attempts to look as honest as possible. “You can and you will. I’ll make sure of it.”

Ten’s smile grows, and Johnny swears his eyes get glossy for a moment. Ten extends his arms out, asking for a hug, and Johnny is all too happy to oblige. Ten buries his face in the crumpled fabric of Johnny’s stomach, arms wrapping tightly around his waist.

“You’re kinda stinky,” Ten says after a while. Then, a suggestion with a hidden motive. “There’s a shower attached to the room. It’s big enough for two people.”

Johnny smiles, trying not to seem too eager as he discards his clothes.

-

The shower they shared was surprisingly not very steamy.

It was more tender, actually, and Johnny rather enjoyed it. They’d spent a long time washing the dirt and grime off of each other, and Johnny had found something new about Ten, and he’s very pleased about this fact.

Ten, as it turns out, likes head massages,if Johnny were to judge by the various sounds of approval he made when Johnny had taken it upon himself to lather Ten’s hair and scalp with the vial of soap they found lying near the sink. 

Johnny bore witness to Ten's scarred body, and in that moment, Ten seemed more conscious of himself than ever before. Johnny made a point of pressing a kiss to all the scars his lips could reach. The scars are ugly, Johnny thinks. They're supposed to be, and they are. But that doesn't make Ten lesser in his eyes. In fact, Ten having survived each and every one of those scars makes him stronger, more formidable. Thicker-skinned and infallible.

Ten was wound so far down by the end of the shower that he’d practically collapsed into the bed, and Johnny had no trouble coaxing him off into sleep. Now they lie tangled with each other under a blanket that was far too thin, on a bed that was hard as cardboard, and a pillow stiffer than Johnny’s neck some days. But there’s not a cause for complaint, not when they’re together like this.

Johnny tunes into Ten’s soft snores, the sound tickling his chest from where Ten had used him as a pillow. With a contented exhale, Johnny lets himself get drawn into sleep as well, and he was all too willing to welcome the darkness that pursued him.

-

Ten wakes before Johnny does, and in the few precious moments that he’s caught between the thresholds of sleep and wakefulness, he almost forgets that he’s a murder-fugitive on the run. Johnny’s heartbeat thrummed right against his ear, the steady rhythm granting him more peace than he’d expected.

Reluctantly, he tears himself away from Johnny’s side. Ten smiles when Johnny’s hands try to reach out for him, his sleeping face stained by a pout. It only disappears when Ten urges it away with a gentle caress.

It takes him a few more moments to get himself off the bed, what with Johnny proving to be very effective at dragging Ten back to his side.

Ten trudges to the bathroom, the memories of earlier making him flush just the slightest bit of red. He catches his reflection in the mirror, a bit disappointed that there was no evidence of what had transpired in this very same bathroom present on his skin. He didn’t expect there to be, anyway. The entire thing was very tame. But still, Ten would’ve liked a souvenir, if only to keep it fresh in his mind for longer.

His eyes linger among his scars for a few seconds, and he remembers the way Johnny had treated him carefully, as if he were fragile, but looked at him as if he were invincible. Ten decides that he minds the scars a little less, even if they ran far deeper than his skin. 

He slides into his clothes. They’re cleaner now; the two had seen to it that their clothing be washed. After all, there’d be no use in taking a shower only to slip back into dirty clothes. Ten tries his best to squeeze out the remaining water trapped within the fabric, deciding that the dull dampness against his skin was the best he’s going to get out of squeezing.

He slips out of the room as quietly as he could, and sets his sights on one Inquisitor Lord.

Ten finds Taeyong on the bridge.

When the door opens, Ten is greeted by the vast expanse of space stretching far and wide beyond the thick viewing glass. Mars was very well in view, and getting larger by the minute. It’s Ring of Iron encircled it the same way a crown would sit atop a monarch’s head. The Ring is gigantic, arguably the largest piece of human architecture and engineering in the known universe. It was a sight to behold, and Ten finds himself taking in breaths of awe.

Taeyong laughs, a brief but knowing sound. “I reacted the same when I’d first seen it too.”

He’s standing at the helm of the bridge, right in front of the thick glass that separated their sanctum from the vacuum of space. Ten walks over to him, surprised that no one aside from the Inquisitor Lord minds him.

“I’ve never gotten to see it this close. My space travels often took me only to the edge of Terra’s gravity well. Never close enough to see this beauty.” Ten chances a look at Taeyong, who looks back with worried eyes and thin lips.

“How sure are you that this plan of yours is going to work?”

“So straightforward,” Ten laughs, although it’s a pitiful sound. He looks down at his feet. “Not sure at all, Taeyong. Not sure at all. But it’s a risk I have to take, isn’t it? Because what other choice do I have?”

Taeyong makes a vague noise of agreement. “I suppose you have a point. If I had no other choice, I’d do the same thing.”

“I should thank you. You’re putting a lot on the line for me.”

“Don’t flatter yourself, I’m not doing this just for you.” Ten looks up at Taeyong with mild surprise. “I’m doing this so that the Imperium gets its well-deserved dose of ‘go to hell’. It’s tyrannical, this Empire of ours. How the God-Emperor has let his life’s work fall so far from grace, I will never comprehend.”

Ten contemplates Taeyong’s words for a while, finding an unsettling truth in them.

“What will you do if they come for you?”

“They already are,” says Taeyong in that cold, emotionless voice of his. But Ten knows deep inside, it’s the exact opposite. “I can take care of myself. I’m more than capable. After all, I’m not an Inquisitor Lord for nothing. And I have a finely-crewed ship behind my back. I’ll live.”

Silence builds.

“You know I love you, Ten,” Taeyong says after a while, meeting his eyes with startling sincerity. “Or if not love, something damned close. Helping you would never be a burden, not to me especially.”

“All I can say is thank you,” Ten admits, a bit pathetically. “I’ll pay you back someday.”

Taeyong snorts. “Don’t even think about it. Anyways, you’ve been quiet. Where’s all the flair and Ten-ness? You used to ooze it, now all I’m getting from you is angsty, troubled adult.”

Ten laughs. “You’re not too far off. Inner turmoil, the works. Johnny promised to help me through it so you’ve got nothing to worry about.”

He only receives a hum in reply.

“What I would like to know,” Ten starts, letting some guile creep into his tone, “Is who your friend over at the AdMech is. It’s hard enough to talk to any member of the Mechanicus, and nigh impossible to befriend them.”

Brief, hesitant silence.

“His name is Jaehyun,” Taeyong says tentatively. “Or at least, that’s the name I gave him. The Mechanicus makes a habit of assigning serial numbers to its less important members. Anyway, I think I ought to just show you.”

And without so much as a warning, Taeyong takes off his coat, discarding it on a nearby empty chair, and pulls back the sleeves of his undergarment. Ten gasps at what he sees.

Entire segments of Taeyong’s arms and forearms have been replaced by cybernetic implants, plates of glinting adamantium that fit against his pale skin. Taeyong tells him, with a small voice, that there’s more on other parts of his body.

“A mission, long after we’d last seen each other. Maybe five years ago. I was tasked to go after this priest, supposedly possessed by some daemonic force. Inquisition thought it was serious enough to send a cadre rather than a lone Inquisitor, Lord or not. So there I was, with three young acolytes and a single AdMech artisan to accompany me. The artisan was there purely for AdMech interests, or so the Inquisition claims. They wanted whatever piece of technology we could find on the mission. Anyways, the priest was not just possessed, he’d become a vessel for some powerful daemon who’d ruptured the Immaterium just enough to get a hold of him.” Taeyong recounts the memory with quiet wistfulness, as if it wasn’t one of the more pleasant stories he could tell. “We lost all three acolytes. Burned to a crisp. I’d have ended up the same if the artisan didn’t get me in time. He was half-human, half-robot, and knew not even the slightest about basic human first aid. So he patched me up the only way he knew how.”

“Taeyong…”

“He’d taken a liking to me since, visits me sometimes when I’m in the Obscurus and he happens to be nearby. Some other times he’d sneak me onto the Ring. He claims he won’t ever let anyone hurt me,” Taeyong says with a fond laugh. “And so far, he’s been successful.”

Ten narrows his eyes. “Lee Taeyong.”

“Hm?”

“Visits in the Obscurus? Stealing onto the Ring? Have you, dare I say, taken a robot for a lover?”

Taeyong blanches. “Shut your mouth. Right this instant.”

That was all the answer Ten needed.

“And he’s not a robot,” Taeyong hisses under his breath.

-

Johnny had come stalking up to the bridge not long after that, and soon they were on a cloaked transport heading for the famed Ring of Iron. They're headed towards some obscure part of the Ring, one where debris and remains of destroyed battleships and warmachines occupied behemoth halls, with ceilings twenty times taller than Taeyong’s shp.

The transport had been piloted through a vent large enough to fit a battlecruiser, and it was just a tad bit hot in the vent. The reason for this, as Taeyong enlightened them, is that the vent was used for the massive furnaces built deeper into the Ring, and it occasionally spits out a firestorm.

“Nothing to worry about, though. Jaehyun says that the furnaces are rarely ever used these days,” Taeyong assured them.

The transport clings to the floor of the vent with its magnetic legs, landing with a rattle and a thud. The three of them had put on their void suits prior, and they readily float out into the vacuum of space that reaches even into the vent.

Before long, they’d ventured to an emergency hatch, and their feet connected solidly against metal as they shut the hatch behind them.

“Follow me,” Taeyong says, and he leads them through an otherwise unnavigable set of maze-like hallways that exit out into one of the massive halls Ten had glimpsed from outside. There were piles, no— mountains of scraps, and half-destroyed technology. To the Mechanicus, this is a salvageable treasure trove.

Making their way through the narrow paths that snaked through the mountains of scraps was another deal entirely, and Ten found himself tripping and grabbing Johnny’s arm for support more often than he’d care to admit.

Finally, they come to a clearing in what seems to be the center of all this mess, where a makeshift workplace had been established. There are no walls, no ceilings to enclose this space, only a dozen long, wide tables filled with trinkets and machinery, and in the middle of it all, the artisan in question.

“Jaehyun?”

At once, Jaehyun freezes. He had about six mechanical tendrils attached to his back, protruding from the holes in his scarlet-red robes, and they all stopped moving, the buzzing and whirring of mechanical equipment pausing for a moment. Ten can discern a head of brown hair, and Jaehyun turns to face them with curiosity in his eyes.

Ten has to hold back a gasp, and he feels Johnny inhale sharply too, because whatever Ten expected of Taeyong’s cyber-lover, he didn’t expect him to be this handsome.

“Taeyong? Is that you?” His voice was warm, welcoming, and very childlike in ways Ten can’t describe. Some obscure mechanism in his right eye seemed to be scanning them, it turned and zoomed like a lens would. Then, the clouded inquisitiveness in his face makes way for a bright smile that turns his eyes into crescents, and he rushes at Taeyong to wrap him in a very enthusiastic hug. All six of his arm-tendrils waved and wagged in the air like the tail of a cat would when it was excited.

It startles a giggle out of Taeyong, who could only return the gesture with as much joy he can muster.

“I have, how do you say, missed you? Yes, I think that’s correct. I have missed you, Taeyong.”

“I’ve missed you too, Jaehyun.” Taeyong pats Jaehyun’s back.

Jaehyun lets Taeyong go, but makes no move to acknowledge Johnny and Ten who were lingering very awkwardly in the background. In fact, it doesn’t at all seem that Jaehyun had noticed the other two men with Taeyong, because he’s now dragging the Inquisitor Lord to a nearby table, where several enhancements that looked identical to the ones on Taeyong’s arms lay scattered across the surface.

“You’d be pleased, yes, most pleased,” chirps Jaehyun. “I have spent much time improving your enhancement schematics.”

His arm tendrils start whirring to life once more, and he only stops when Taeyong interrupts him.

“Jaehyun, would you please pause for a moment?” Taeyong asks, with more patience in his voice than Ten had ever heard him address even the most naive, fresh-out-of-the-academy recruits. “I have some friends to introduce to you.”

“Friends?” His head perks up at that. “Oh, yes, friends. Taeyong has taught me this word before. Friend, singular, defined simply as ‘a favored companion.’ You have brought me your companions?”

Taeyong smiles fondly. “Yes, I have.” He ushers Jaehyun in Johnny and Ten’s direction. “I’d like you to meet Ten and Johnny.”

“Ten… Johnny?”

Jaehyun spends some time mulling their names out loud, as if searching every dictionary and database for their names.

“Ten and Johnny, filed under friends. Greetings!” Jaehyun smiles at them, extending a tendril each for them to shake. “I am Artisan Unit 21497. Taeyong has given me the name Jaehyun. Do these friends also need cybernetic enhancements?”

Johnny startles as a tendril snakes a tape measure around his arm, and another tendril sets a measuring stick beside Ten. The latter was not pleased to find that the stick was taller than him, if only by a few inches.

“No,” Ten manages to answer, “But we are in need of something that needs to be built.”

“Built?” Jaehyun tilts his head. “I am very skilled at building things. What do you need me to build?”

Johnny shows the blueprint to Jaehyun, and it’s immediately snatched up by a tendril. The whirring of his mechanical implants was matched by his concentrated humming.

“We need to build something similar to this, it’s called a pharos. Do you think you could do that?”

Jaehyun pauses, and it looks as if he’s searching for something within himself. “Pharos,” he mutters, then his face lights up again. “Pharos. A device created by the ancient Necrons to achieve safe warp-travel. Yes, yes, I have the adequate materials to build such a device.” He turns to Taeyong. “Would this please you if I build this… pharos?”

“Yes,” Taeyong nods. “And it would please Johnny and Ten too.”

“Very well,” Jaehyun’s tendrils each drop something in Johnny and Ten’s hands. “I shall make this pharos. It shall take exactly three hours and thirty-two minutes.”

With that, Jaehyun scurries off into his mountains of scraps with more speed than Ten had expected him to have.

He examines the metal block Jaehyun had dropped in his hand. It’s barely the length of his hand, rectangular and obsidian black. He looks at Johnny, who sports a miniscule cube that he twirls between his fingers, a curious glint in his eye.

“What the hell,” is all Ten can say.

“It takes getting used to,” Taeyong admits, the small smile not leaving his face. “But I swear he’s harmless. Quite endearing, actually.”

“That I can see,” Johnny says in agreement. “The man is… cute?”

Ten hums an affirmative. Jaehyun is more like a child than anything, Ten thinks. The inquisitive light in his eyes, his gestures, his reactions, it was all tainted with a kind of naivety that only a child could possess. And yet, Ten’s certain that there’s more to him than meets the eye.

“I told you he wasn’t a lover,” Taeyong says a while later, when they manage to find a couple of chairs and set them up somewhere in the middle of all the clutter. “Not exactly platonic either. There’s just something in him that I want to, I don’t know, protect. There’s nothing sexual. For now, at least.”

A hint of red dusts Taeyong’s cheeks.

Johnny is off exploring the scrap mountains, trying to see if there’s anything of interest. Taeyong and Ten stayed behind, they weren’t feeling as adventurous.

“Don’t be so bashful,” Ten teases. “You’re blushing like an adolescent. You’re not that innocent. However, I can see how you feel the way you do, about not feeling anything sexual for him. Jaehyun seems very pure to me.”

“Yeah,” Taeyong says, smiling to himself. “And purity is rare these days.”

And he’s only right about that. Far too right, because Ten used to think not a corner in the universe had been left undisturbed by the Imperium and the suffering that it brought wherever it went. But surprisingly, there’s a corner here, despite how small, and Ten ratiher likes that.

It almost makes him believe that there’s a chance for people like him. A chance to undo all his wrongs and wash his hands of the ilk and filth that covers it.

Almost.

-

Taemin prides himself in his duality. Naive ray of sunshine one second, hell’s overlord the next. He’s a performer, after all. And Taemin is no half-assed actor. He likes to think that had the Inquisition not snatched him up when he was young, he’d be on some remote leisure planet, performing in front of audiences all too willing to give him standing ovations.

But Taemin is here, stuck chasing some rat. A rat he helped train and shared some brotherly memories with, but a rat nonetheless. And such a circumstance edged him toward the ‘hell’s overlord’ persona. And truth be told?

“It’s not good for my complexion,” he finds himself saying out loud, holding a mirror in one hand.

“Pardon, mi’lord?”

The stormtrooper regards him curiously.

“Nothing,” Taemin sings. He breathes in, and out. _Stop frowning,_ he thinks. And with a decisive exhale, he decides that those stress wrinkles will not triumph over him today. “What news of our dear number Ten?”

“Intelligence suspects that he and his companion were aided off-planet by Inquisitor Lord Lee Taeyong. They were last spotted in the Imperial base nearest the Schola Progenium. The Inquistor Lord’s ship last held a course for Mars.”

Taemin sighs. “Traitors. I will never understand them. Why give up a life of devotion to the Empeor, hmm? Why give up a status of power and prominence? Love, they’ll claim. Love is for adolescent fantasizers. It’s something the media concocted for the masses to consume. It’s only real on stage, and on stage, nothing is real at all. Don’t you agree?”

“Y-yes, mi’lord.”

“Good boy. Ah, well, anyways. Matters like these require some tact. I’ll be nothing more than a disgruntled house cat if I continue to directly pursue that rodent, as I have been. It’s time we put our connections to use,” Taemin decides. “What ever became of that bastard child sired by one of the noble houses?” The stormtrooper sputters, sorely ignorant of what the Inquisitor Lord was talking about. Nonetheless, Taemin continues without regard for him. “I think I recall him being trained for generalship. Yes, I remember now. He should be stationed within Segmentum Solar. Set up a communication line with the Lord-General of the 9th Army. I would like to speak to him.”

“At once, mi’lord.”

Taemin turns in his seat, watching as the monitor on the wall comes to life. It takes a moment for them to reach the Lord-General. Communications within the Imperium has been getting quite sluggish, as of late.

“Inquisitor Lord,” greets the deep voice. “To what do I owe this honor?”

Taemin puts a smile on his face. And so, another performance begins.

“Ah, Lord-General,” he says breezily. “I only need to call in a favor. See, I’ve been trying to catch a rat, and it’s about time I spring a trap.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it’s good to take a break from the action, hm??


	5. V

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “The scent of our own taints you, Lord Inquisitor,” it says. The voice that speaks is gravelly, rough. Every word sounds like a feral growl. “You’ve defiled the Holiness of the Red Planet with your presence. This is a violation of the Agreement, heresy in the eyes of the Omnissiah. You must be exterminated.” 
> 
> A single blast rings through the room, and smoke guzzles out the barrel of Taeyong’s crossbow. “Do shut up.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm back ! it only took 6 months for the next chapter but what can i do lmao :D i am very happy that I was able to resume work on this fic, because despite my lack of motivation for writing I really do profoundly love this fic specifically and the universe I've set it in. while we all ponder the complete (non-existent) anomaly that is my writing schedule, have chapter five! it is action packed with feelings and i hope you enjoy it <3

“It can’t be that easy,” Ten says, a whisper. “It’s too suspicious.”

“What?” Taeyong asks. 

“Build a device, find a psyker. Escape to some obscure pocket of space,” Ten looks at Taeyong and sees doubtful eyes staring back at him. “It sounds too easy. Even you seem to think so.”

“It seems easy but it’s not going to be,” Taeyong says. He stares out into the stellar ocean before them, distant stars twinkling like moonlight reflecting off the sea. There’s a gentle furrow to his brow. “The Imperium will hunt you down while they can, using all possible means if they have to. Letting you go is not a risk they’re willing to gamble.”

Ten hums in agreement, the sound low and bitter. 

“After the pharos is built, we’ll need a psyker.”

“The irony of it all,” Taeyong says, chuckling drably. “You’ve dedicated your life to exterminating them, and here you are, needing one of their own to save your ass from the God-Emperor who wants them, and now you, dead.”

“Unfortunately, I know exactly where to find one.”

“Oh? Made a friend, have you?”

“Not exactly,” Ten almost grimaces as he recalls the memory. “A few years ago I had to track this sorceress. It was simple enough. Find her location, kill her, and leave. On the day I was supposed to carry out the mission, everything went smoothly at first, until I got to her lair and found out she had an apprentice, a boy. Now that changes everything. The Imperium didn’t know about that boy, and he hadn’t been factored in the grand scheme of things. In my mind, he didn’t have to die.”

“You spared him?” Taeyong asks, surprised.

Ten nods. “He was innocent, Taeyong. I had a choice to let him live, and I made that choice. The sorceress still had to die though, the mission is the mission. So I killed her and sent the boy off to somewhere in the Obscurus. A planet called Dream.” 

“Emperor almighty,” Taeyong says under his breath. “Can’t blame the Imperium for wanting your head. You’re a walking antithesis to the Emperor.”

Ten shrugs. “Never did like him anyway. Just some ancient old man with a praise kink rotting away on a throne.”

Taeyong laughs, and it’s soft but real. Then, a sound groans through the hall, like a scream and the whir of gears put together. It’s followed by the shaking of the ground they stood upon as a steady beat wracks the Ring of Iron.

“What the warp is that?” Ten asks. Dust falls from the nooks and crannies they’ve nestled into. 

“Skitarii,” Taeyong says, unfazed.

“Shit. I forgot about them.”

“Never saw one until the first time Jaehyun brought me here. They creep me the fuck out. They look like some ghastly amalgamation of skeletons and cybernetics. They patrol the Ring to check for intruders, if they find us, we’ll have a legion of them on our tails.”

“Will we be in trouble?”

Taeyong shakes his head. “We’re safe with Jaehyun. They don’t usually enter the artisan chambers, just the halls outside. We’re safe on the Ring, since the Inquisition is forbidden from even going near Mars, but we can’t stay forever. Once Jaehyun finishes the pharos, we’re leaving.”

Just then, Johnny appears from behind a mountain of salvaged electronic parts. 

“There’s a problem,” he announces.

They gather back at Jaehyun’s workspace, where a husk of the pharos lay in a half-assembled state atop one of the tables. 

“There has been a miscalculation,” Jaehyun says, the tendrils from his back sagging dispiritedly. 

“What kind?” Ten asks.

“I have assembled all I can using all knowledge currently present in my data storage unit. See all four thousand five hundred and sixty files pertaining to independent warp beacon construction,” A blue hologram projects from one of Jaehyun’s eyes, showing folders upon folders of files and data that Ten can’t begin to comprehend. The image fades as Jaehyun grabs the unfinished pharos with a tendril that drops it into his hands. “This is all I can build using the present data.”

“But you said you could build it,” Ten says. 

“He can,” Taeyong interrupts. “He can, but devices like the pharos can’t be built without schematics, right Jaehyun?”

“Taeyong is correct. I can build the pharos, however, the required schematics could only be found on a lost STC hard copy whose last known location was the planet Hito.”

“Shit,” Johnny swears.

“Shit?” Jaehyun tilts his head. “I have never heard this expression before. Judging by the tone of your voice, I assume it is a—”

“It is a derogatory remark,” Taeyong finishes for him, shooting Johnny a mean look. 

“It has been stored in my data storage unit, and I will make sure to use it at the appropriate times.”

Taeyong sighs. Ten turns to Johnny, “What’s the matter?”

“I’ve been to Hito,” Johnny says. “While on recon duty, my unit was shot down from the atmosphere by some pirates. Luckily enough, we survived, but we had to get back to the fleet while fighting our way through those pirates. We found out that there was a local order of monks there or something, so we came to them for help. Boy, were we in for a surprise.”

Ten doesn’t know how to interpret the look on Johnny’s face. His lips were stretched into a small smile, but his eyes indicated fear. 

“Why?” Ten asks.

“They weren’t monks, that was only a guise. They called themselves the Order of the Heavenly Virtues, and they’re blademasters who train in an ancient martial art, using modified power swords called katanas. They offered us a ride back to the fleet if we helped them drive away the pirates terrorizing their villages.” 

“They sound alright, what’s there to worry about?” Taeyong asks.

“I remember one of them mentioning a library where they store lost, ancient technology. I think that’s what Jaehyun may be referring to. The problem is, they have a creed they follow religiously: To never let that tech fall into Imperial hands.”

“Well, we have no choice,” Ten says. “Those monks are our only chance at completing this thing.”

“Then it’s decided,” Taeyong says. “We leave for Hito as soon as possible.”

“An expedition?” Jaehyun perks up, mechanical tendrils whirring to life. “Oh, an expedition! I am going to pack all the necessary tools. I am already looking forward to it.”

Jaehyun drags a metal chest out from a pile of scraps, beginning to fill it in with all kinds of things like med-pacs, oil canisters, and all the requisites for an AdMech artisan on an adventure.

“He gets all excited every time he has to leave the Ring,” Taeyong explains with a smile. “He hates it here.”

“I can see that,” Ten says, and Taeyong excuses himself for a moment to help out with the packing. The pair watches as Taeyong forces Jaehyun to give up a large box set of tweezers of all shapes and sizes. 

Ten reaches for Johnny’s hand, who squeezes back and smiles reassuringly. “It’ll all work out in the end. Right?”

Johnny is quiet for a moment, and Ten doesn’t blame him. It’d be foolish to say yes, and downright grim to say no.

And yet, 

“Of course it will,” Johnny says, smiling with all the confidence of a man who can take on the universe. Ten lets himself indulge in the illusion, finding that he doesn’t hate the feeling.

-

The journey back to Taeyong’s ship is uneventful. Suspiciously uneventful. They’re able to make it all the way to the bridge before a warning light paints the room red. 

“Status report,” Taeyong says from the captain’s seat. 

“Skitarii spacecraft approaching, my lord,” says one of the officers on deck. A built-in screen in the bridge viewports zoom in on a distant ship. “Hailing.”

“Don’t. There’s no use,” Taeyong says. “Skitarii don’t negotiate. Man the battlestations, divert power to the void shields.” 

“Mayhaps I can convince them to turn around,” Jaehyun suggests, but Taeyong shakes his head.

“It’s best they don’t know you’re here Jaehyun. The most you can do for us is to tell us what we’re about to face.”

Jaehyun casts a look at the distant void ship before nodding. A hologram projects from his right eye. 

“Standard Skitarii procedure is to board and exterminate. This is a standard member of the Skitarii Vanguard,” Jaehyun explains. The hologram presents a man encased in iron, with a helm that glowed blue at the eyes. “They are highly-trained soldiers of the Adeptus Mechanicum. Standard armament is a rad-carbine. Extremely potent to living beings because of the radiation they emit. They will be boarding this ship with the objective to kill everyone on board.”

“I recognize some of that tech,” Johnny says. “We fought alongside some Skitarii in several battles. My men used to get sick just being near them.”

“It’s the radiation,” Taeyong says contemplatively. “So we keep them at a distance. Unfortunately, that’s also where they are most potent. Those carbines can pick us off like ants.”

“In an open environment they can,” Ten says. “But we’re on a starship. Let’s use that to our advantage. They’ll be targeting the bridge, so close off all other paths except one. Create a chokepoint, force them to squeeze into the hallways.”

“Even then, we don’t have the equipment to deal with an entire platoon of them,” Taeyong says, eyeing his crossbow. “We’ve got top of the line lasguns but it’d be like hammering nails into adamantium. We’d run out of cartridges before we could even take half of them down, considering we don’t miss.” 

“So we don’t take them down one by one,” Ten says. He turns to Jaehyun. “When in battle, is there someone or something that oversees the entire op? Like a controller of some sorts?”

“There is.” Jaehyun prompts another hologram to project from his eye. The image they see is enough to make Ten grimace. “This is a tech-priest.”

“Ugly,” Ten says. Johnny nods in agreement. The thing is identical to Jaehyun, except Jaehyun is leagues more pleasant to look at. The tech-priest’s back is littered with mechanical tendrils, its face a cold metal mask.

“The tech-priest directs every single action made by the Skitarii from a control center within the ship. If you manage to disable the priest and shut down the control console, the Vanguard will be terminated.” Then, the image shifts to another Skitarii, one identical to the Vanguard but more sinister in appearance. “But it will be no easy job. The tech-priest is protected by a squad of Skitarii Alphas. They are elite warriors. Threat level: extremely potent.”

Silence fills the bridge, and everyone looks to Taeyong for the final decision. 

“Here’s the plan,” he begins, drawing up a hologram of their ship. “Johnny, you’ll lead my security team in fighting back the Vanguards. My ship has one weak spot in its armor: the hangar bay doors. It’s thinner, enough for the Skitarii boarding shuttles to latch on. Expect the hangars to be radiated and infested with those ugly things the moment the shuttles make contact. Your job is to close off all the hallways leading out of that hangar, give them no choice but to take one path. While that happens, we need to start putting distance between ourselves and the Ring of Iron. We are no match for the orbital guns mounted on there.” 

“What about us?” Ten asks, and Taeyong’s lips turn up in a cunning smile.

“My darling Ten, we are going to shut that tech-priest down.” 

A violent tremor wracks the ship. 

Taeyong swears under his breath. “What was that?” 

“The Skitarii ship is targeting us with ion bolts, my lord. When the shields give in, our ship will be completely paralyzed.”

“Right, no time to waste,” Taeyong says, clapping Ten on the back. “Let’s get a move on. Those shuttles will be coming any time now.”

“What of me?” Jaehyun asks, tendrils waving eagerly in the air. “I wish to help.”

“You stay and help defend the bridge, Jaehyun.” Taeyong turns to Johnny, pointing a finger at him. “You make sure no harm comes to him.”

Johnny nods. “Of course.” 

Five minutes later, Taeyong is at the helm of a thunderhawk with Ten in the first officer’s seat. 

“This doesn’t happen often,” Taeyong remarks, flicking switches. The ship hums to life, the engines causing the entire cockpit to tremble.

Ten secures his seatbelt, settling into his seat. “Can’t say it does.”

“Hope you’re not rusty,” Taeyong says, cheeky.

Ten sends an unimpressed look his way. “Let’s not forget which out of the two of us hasn’t been on a mission in years.”

The thunderhawk lifts off the hangar floor, and in the next moment they’re gliding out into space. 

“Then it’s a good thing I took you along with me,” Taeyong says quietly, and Ten watches him intently. 

“Irresolution isn’t a good look on you,” Ten comments, eyes focused on the Skitarii ship that’s getting closer by the moment. “What happened to the headstrong Lee Taeyong that threatened to blow up my house just because he didn’t like my carpet?”

 _“That_ was a facade. The years inactive have made me weak. I’m rustier than those mountains of salvaged machine parts on the Ring of Iron.” 

“You’re the Imperium’s top daemonslayer. You can be rusty and still be better than half the Inquisition.”

“Not the point,” Taeyong says. “I used to be indispensable. Now I’m a liability.”

“Not to me.”

Taeyong looks at him, and Ten stares back, as if daring the other man to challenge him. Taeyong chuckles.

“Of course not. You’re in love with me.”

“No truer word,” Ten says, smiling. 

“Keep smiling like that and I’ll start thinking it’s true.”

Ten rolls his eyes, giving an exasperated sigh. “Just get us to the ship and let’s take out that tech-priest. You’re insufferable.”

The Skitarii vessel launches its boarding shuttles, forward turrets raining hell on the approaching thunderhawk. Taeyong’s hand tightens around the steering as he maneuvers them through the flak and shrapnel. 

“There’s no opening for a clean landing. Hold onto something!” Taeyong grits out. 

Ten looks at him as if he’s insane. “What are you doing—”

“Getting us onboard!” 

Taeyong’s words are drowned out by the roar of missiles that stream forth from their mounts on the thunderhawk. The missiles tear a gaping hole through the Skitarii ship’s hull, and Taeyong flies the thunderhawk straight into the opening. The crash is loud and unforgiving, and hardware falls out of their places in the cockpit, sending sparks flying and wires flailing wildly about. 

When the dust settles, Ten unbuckles his belt. 

“Your piloting skills are phenomenal,” Ten says, swatting uselessly at the cloud of smoke in his face. 

Taeyong is one step ahead of him, kicking open one of the exit panels. They emerge out into the Skitarii ship’s dark hallways. Ten follows shortly after, unholstering his bolter and activating the attached flashlight. 

Ten makes an amused sound. “These robots could make use of your knack for interior design.”

“I think they’ll like your ugly carpets more.”

Ten pulls up a hologram map of the ship. “Turn right here.”

They turn the corner, pausing for a moment to check for any presence. They continue on hurriedly when they discover that the hallway is empty.

“It’s quiet,” Taeyong says, not lowering his crossbow. “Jaehyun said it would be, but it’s scarier than I imagined. The entire thing is run by that tech-priest, so having other personnel would just be redundant.”

“Left at the next junction. Watch out for the motion sensor, it’ll spring a trap if it detects us.” Taeyong stops moving, and Ten throws a metal ball through the junction. It sends out a pulse of electricity that overloads the sensor, and it crackles as its systems are fried. “There’s an elevator up ahead, it’ll take us straight to the control center. Once we’re there, it’s gonna be hot.”

“You take the Skitarii Alpha, I’ll deal with the tech-priest.”

“As you wish, Lord Inquisitor.”

“Don’t _ever_ call me that again,” Taeyong says, disgusted, entering the elevator. Ten follows, and they begin the ascent to the control center. The seconds leading up to the moment are quiet and tense, more so for Taeyong, whose eyes are unfocused. 

Ten reaches out to take his hand, and Taeyong startles.

“Calm yourself,” Ten says. “I’m here. You’ll be fine.”

Taeyong nods, and the doors open. 

The darkness is thick. Machines whir in the shadows, gears turning and mechanisms groaning. The pair shine their lights out into the room, seeing consoles and panels but no tech-priest. When they take their first steps in, there’s a hum, like something powering up. It’s followed by several more sounds like it, and a blue glow that pierces the darkness. Two blue spheres in the sea of shadow, like eyes. Several more appear around the room. 

“The Alphas,” Taeyong realizes. “No sign of the priest.”

The Skitarii Alphas remain unmoving. 

Ten narrows his eyes. “Why aren’t they—”

There’s a scream, Ten realizes later that it is his own. Something sharp and imbued with electricity had punctured him right in his belly. A Skitarii Alpha looms over him as if it’d crossed the room in an instant like a fleeting shadow. Paralysis grips his body, and he falls to the ground. 

The lights in the room turn on, revealing the rest of the Skitarii now assuming combat stances. A bolt buries itself into the head of the Skitarii nearest to Ten, oil and blood splattering out the helm like a fountain. 

Darkness obscures Ten’s vision as hell breaks loose.

-

A violent tremor throws Johnny off balance. Jaehyun makes a sound of alarm. 

“The Skitarii have boarded, commissar,” says one of the officers. “The squads have been deployed and are awaiting your command.”

“Tell them to hold those rustbuckets back as long as they can,” Johnny says, loading his bolter. “I’ll be joining them shortly.” 

“I as well,” Jaehyun says. 

Johnny stops. “Jaehyun, I think it’ll be best if you stay here.”

“But—”

“No buts, buddy. Lord Inquisitor’s orders.” 

Jaehyun makes a mechanical noise that sounds like a sigh. “Very well.”

Johnny pats him on the shoulder before sprinting out of the bridge. When he reaches the kill-zone, it’s absolute hell. Smoke congests the air, yells and screams echoing off the walls. Bolters pummel surfaces, bullets pierce bodies effortlessly. 

The Vanguard is steadily advancing, the lasguns only barely making scratches on their armor. 

Johnny joins the guardsmen at the makeshift barricade, wasting no time in unloading a cartridge on the first Skitarii he sees. It takes half his loaded bullets to batter in the Skitarii’s helm. 

He sinks behind the cover of the barricade, making eye contact with the trooper beside him. 

“I don’t suppose you have any bigger guns on this ship?” Johnny asks. 

The soldier looks weary, as if talking to a commissar isn’t in his best interests. “There—there may be a rocket launcher in the armory, sir.”

“And where is that?”

The soldier points at a distant door, halfway between the barricade and the Skitarii. 

“Well, shit.” Johnny weighs his options, deciding that there isn’t much of a choice. “Alright, I’m going to make a run for that armory. Our chance of survival is in there. I’m going to need everyone to cover me! Am I understood?” 

There’s a responding shout in unison.

“In three!”

The shooting on their side ceases for a moment as the soldiers replace their cartridges. 

“Two!” Bated breath. Drumming hearts. The calm before the storm. 

“One!”

Johnny leaps out of cover just as lasfire rains forth from behind him. The Skitarii are overwhelmed for a moment, and the window of time it creates allows Johnny to dive through the armory door just as the Skitarii recover. 

He can’t help but feel relief at the sight he beholds. Boxes of grenades, rifles, and more importantly, a rocket launcher that’s just begging Johnny to hold it.

The plan he devises is easy enough. Throw a disorientation grenade into the hallway to stun the Skitarii, then use the rocket launcher to take them out. 

Johnny wastes no time in throwing the grenade. The hallway bursts in a bright flash of white, and Johnny’s ears start ringing from the explosion. Then, with the rocket launcher slung over his back, he runs back towards the barricade. He thinks the men and women are cheering for him, but he can’t hear anything but his own breathing and heartbeat. He makes it over the barricade and gets into position. His hand hovers over the trigger, and when he pulls it, his entire upper body recoils with the force of the rocket launcher unleashing its payload. 

The hallway is consumed in bright orange flame, the resulting explosion causing a shockwave that forces them all down behind the barricade. When Johnny rises to survey the battlefield, he finds that the Skitarii are lying in a charred pile on the floor. Various parts, both mechanical and human, are strewn all over the ground. 

There is, however, no time to celebrate their victory as Jaehyun’s voice feeds in through Johnny’s earpiece.

“Hello, Johnny!” Jaehyun chirps.

“Hey, Jaehyun. How are things up at the bridge?”

Silence.

“Jaehyun?” 

“...I am not at the bridge.” 

“What—“ Johnny feels a sting of fear at the thought of what Taeyong might do to him. “Where are you right now?” 

“At the reactor. It seems that a detachment of Skitarii have strayed from the main force and are attempting to breach the reactor. Shall they succeed, the concurring explosion will set off a chain reaction that will obliterate the entire ship and everything inside.” 

“Stay put.” Johnny’s already moving. “I’m coming.”

He sprints down in the direction of the reactor as fast as he could, though he has to take the long way around to avoid any stray Skitarii. The hallways are near-identical, all sterile and grey, and he’s dizzy and his feet begin to ache. When he arrives, Jaehyun makes a happy noise.

A squad of Imperial guards is scattered out around them and stationed at various vantage points, lasguns all pointed at the blast door on the far end of the room. The hum of the ship’s reactor is supplanted by the steady percussion of the Skitarii ramming into the doors, forcing them to break open.The sound reminds Johnny of the battlefield, of the thundering of artillery batteries firing the opening salvoes. 

“How many?” Johnny asks.

“My scan indicates that there are twenty Skitarii Vanguards beyond the door.” Jaehyun pauses. “And an Alpha. I believe it is time to say: Shit.”

Jaehyun imitates the tone Johnny had used with the word before, and the commissar can’t help but laugh.

“Dig in, Jaehyun. This is going to be tough.” Then, he turns to the guards around him. He takes a deep breath before speaking, making sure that his voice will carry across the entire room. “Listen up! The Skitarii behind that door want to destroy us. We are the only thing standing in between them and the reactor, and by the Emperor, we are _not_ going to let them pass. As we speak, the Lord Inquisitors are aboard the enemy ship, doing all they can to shut these Skitarii down. We are going to make sure that they still have a ship to return to when they’re finished, do you understand?”

There’s a chorus of yells in response, a sound surpassed in volume only by the doors being blown open. Smoke fogs the entry, and Johnny tightens his grip on his bolter. Blue orbs pierce the veil of smoke, parting in wisps before the ugly head of a radium carbine. 

Then, a crackle. One gunshot, one man down. A lasgun clatters to the floor, and Johnny catches a glimpse of the soldier’s dead eyes. The lasfire that ensues erupts in Johnny’s ears, setting the room aglow in the color of red-hot warpfire. 

The Skitarii bullets fly past them, not needing to hit their marks to deal damage. The bullets leak radiation, and everytime one buries itself in the metal around Johnny, he feels himself getting weak. 

“We need to stop them from firing those bullets,” Johnny gasps, suddenly disoriented. “If the radiation accumulates, the reactor will blow.”

One by one, the guards around them drop dead like flies. Jaehyun pushes himself up from behind cover. 

Johnny stares at him. “What are you doing?”

“Activating Mindstate Secutor,” Jaehyun says, voice robotic. The tendrils on his back bristle forward, his right eye glowing with a red targeting scope. 

“Jaehyun, get back behind cover—”

Before Johnny could even finish his sentence, Jaehyun leaps forward with surprising strength. Johnny watches in amazement as Jaehyun uses a tendril to seize a Skitarii’s carbine upon landing, wielding it as a club that batters the poor thing’s helmet until it’s bloodied and concave. Another tendril pierces a Skitarii straight through the chest, it being raised into the air before being hurled at one of his comrades. 

Another Skitarii charges at Jaehyun, thrusting a fist forward, but Jaehyun stops it with his hand. 

“You’ve made a miscalculation,” Jaehyun says lightly, before dragging the Skitarii forward and onto the barrel of a carbine he’d picked up from the ground. The Skitarii convulses as Jaehyun pulls on the trigger. 

He moves onto the next target, prompting a tendril to lash at its chestplate, cutting a deep gash into the mechanisms and flesh beneath. He shoves a carbine straight into the mouthpiece of another one, firing a single shot. The other Skitarii start directing their attention away from the reactor, focusing their firepower on Jaehyun. Each bullet, however, is either caught or repelled by a mechanical tendril. 

Johnny capitalizes on the momentum and rallies the remaining guardsmen. The suppression brought by their lasguns in tandem with the unexpected terror that is Jaehyun allows them to push back the Skitarii inch by inch. 

But the fight is a long way from being over, because an alert from the bridge tells him that more Skitarii Vanguards have just landed in the hangar. 

Johnny steels himself and reloads his gun.

-

Taeyong runs forward, propelling himself up using a console. The electronics give a crunch beneath his adamantium-plated heels, and mid-air, time seems to stop. Taeyong’s body has been primed, conditioned for years to perform moves that would cripple a normal human. Inactivity had made him unsure, had wrestled from him his dominion over every battlefield he steps upon. But when he leaps into the air, in the first serious fight he’d engaged in for years, everything seems to fall back into place. 

Two Skitarii Alphas before him, a simultaneous strike to counter.

Retract left leg for maximum power. Extend right arm to aim. A built-in knife protrudes from the sole of his boot, and when he kicks it’s a sting-like motion. The knife buries itself in the first Alpha’s forehead. When his right arm is in place, he pulls on his crossbow’s trigger. One shot is enough to completely decapitate the second Alpha. 

Time resumes its normal pace, and Taeyong lands on the ground with a roll. 

Three Alphas face him this time, all charging, taser swords brought up to strike. The nearest one, the one to Taeyong’s left—its timing is wrong. A second too early. 

Taeyong seizes the Alpha’s arm, and with all his strength he directs its taser sword straight into the throat of another. He fires two shots from his crossbow, one into the waist of the Alpha whose sword was jammed in his comrade’s throat, and another into the chest of the one that remains untouched. The force of the shot is enough to send the Alpha flying backwards. 

Taeyong looks around the room, there’s three more Skitarii to go. They’re scattered around, far enough apart that Taeyong could plausibly take them down one by one if he’s quick enough and if he places his blows right. 

He runs towards his first target.

At the last moment, he shifts his weight, delivering a roundhouse kick that sends the Alpha toppling over a control console. He leaps over it, firing a killing shot as he glides through the air. He dodges a swipe of a taser sword as the next Alpha comes for him. The other one is nowhere to be seen. 

Taeyong is forced backwards as he repels the persistent offence. He uses the width of his crossbow to parry the strikes, and he locks the Alpha’s sword in place by trapping it using the weapon’s side-limbs. With a forceful pull, he disarms it, but the damned thing does not give in. 

A swift uppercut sends Taeyong reeling backward, his mind jarred and disoriented by the sudden strike. The following blows are punishing, and had it not been for the adamantium implants that supplant portions of his skin, he figures he’d have several broken bones right now. 

Taeyong kicks the Alpha in the chest, putting a stop to its assault. Then, he sprints forward, tackling it by the shoulder and leaping off the ground. Taeyong uses the momentum to swing his entire body over the Alpha’s upper abdomen, performing a move that ultimately ends in Taeyong throwing it off its feet and forward into a brutal roll. 

Taeyong stands up. One final shot of the crossbow is all it takes to silence it. 

Then, Taeyong senses it. The last Alpha, approaching from behind. But the Lord Inquisitor’s movement is slowed. He’s running behind by a millisecond. The lapse is a gap in his armor, and it allows a blunt hilt to slam into the side of his head, sending him crashing onto the ground. His crossbow clatters to the floor some distance away from him.

All of a sudden, everything falls apart. His iron walls, torn down. His invincibility defiled and discarded. In the blink of an eye, Taeyong’s body fails him, his mind refuses to think for him, and there’s nothing, absolutely _nothing_ that could save him from himself. 

The Alpha stands over him, with its helm in the image of the grim reaper, with its red robes that are as deep as crimson blood. There, in the shadow of the lone Skitarii, he becomes small. He cowers unlike he’s ever done before, falters the way he was never designed to. 

Daemons, possessions, projections of the warp—he’s dealt with them. Hunted them. Destroyed them without mercy so many times before. So why can’t he do the same for this useless warmachine? 

Taeyong opens his mouth, and what comes out is a pitiful sound.

Three gunshots ring loud in Taeyong’s ears. Two of the bullets bury themselves in each of the Alpha’s eyes, the third in the weak armor that guards its throat. It gives a short groan before falling a second later.

“Up,” Ten rushes down to his side. “Come on, get up.”

“Ten—” 

_“_ Look at me.” Ten forces Taeyong to look into his eyes, a hand on either side of his dirt-smeared face. “We’re going to kill that tech-priest and haul our asses back to your ship. Until then, you have to keep it together, alright?”

Taeyong nods, pushing himself off the ground. 

The room quakes as the center of the room opens up. A putrid smell immediately pervades the air, one of spoiled meat and machine oils. From the opening emerges a platform, upon which a hulking, dilapidated tech-priest stood surrounded by various levers and mechanisms. 

Its back is crowded with thick, creaking tendrils, some of which are fitted with some probing devices that scan Taeyong and Ten. 

“The scent of our own taints you, Lord Inquisitor,” it says. The voice that speaks is gravelly, rough. Every word sounds like a feral growl. “You’ve defiled the Holiness of the Red Planet with your presence. This is a violation of the Agreement, heresy in the eyes of the Omnissiah. You must be exterminated.” 

A single blast rings through the room, and smoke guzzles out the barrel of Taeyong’s crossbow. “Do shut up.”

The tech-priest slumps over its own equipment, tendrils falling limp around it. Machine oils leak and stain the floor. 

Ten slings an arm around Taeyong’s shoulder. “Let’s go.”

The Lord Inquisitor lets himself be pulled away. Although the battle was won, the victory was unfelt. Not in Lee Taeyong’s turbulent heart.

-

Taeyong sits upon the captain’s seat. “Set us a course for Hito, Ensign.” 

“Aye, my Lord.” 

The _Ardent Rose_ cuts its path through space, edging further and away from Mars with each passing second. The ship physically vibrates as its warp engines power up, humming and creaking the way a well-used machine is supposed to. 

The moment the ship dives into the Warp is always an unforgettable one. The viewports go white for the briefest moment, a fleeting flash of light. The temporary vibrance then erupts into a display of pure flames, in all colors of the spectrum. Churning, roaring, it was an ocean of Chaos, and all that stands between the men and women of this ship and that vast expanse of stellar Warpfire is several meters of Adamantium. 

The Warp is a marvel Ten will never get tired of seeing, and yet, it also stands for everything he dreads the most. This is the birthplace of daemons, the dimension from which psykers draw their unearthly power from. The Warp is the embodiment of the very thing Ten is supposed to eradicate, and seeing something so vast, something so irrevocably inextinguishable—it always made him question if there was ever a point to hunting those that he did. 

More and more, the answer seems to be no. 

Taeyong rises from the captain’s seat with a heave, hand briefly clasping Ten’s shoulder. 

“Should be a lengthy ride to Hito. Even with the Warp, it’s still on the other side of the galaxy.” He starts moving towards the door. “Get some rest before then. It could only get harder from there.”

Ten grabs him by the arm, effectively stopping him. “We need to talk.”

“About?” 

“Earlier.”

Taeyong doesn’t meet his eyes. “No we don’t.”

“You shut down.” Ten tries to say something more, but Taeyong’s grip tightens around him, and he shuts up.

“Not here,” Taeyong whispers. “Come with me to the infirmary.”

Ten concedes, releasing Taeyong with a sigh. “Fine.”

“Mind your attitude.” 

An exasperated smile appears on Ten’s face. “Forgive the trespass, my lord.”

The pair finally arrive at the infirmary, which is crowded, as expected. The chief medical officer is preoccupied with assisting all the wounded from earlier, and Taeyong decides to put his staff before himself. They end up having to move to another room, which turns out to be the brig, which is starkly empty in comparison. 

Well, empty enough.

“How’d you two end up here?” Taeyong asks, situating himself beside Jaehyun, who was sat criss-crossed on the floor with medical equipment scattered around him. 

Ten ends up at Johnny’s side, who had occupied one of the chairs. 

“I have acquired medical supplies,” Jaehyun says happily. “I should be able to treat your injuries using non-cybernetic methods.”

“Everywhere else is too much people,” Johnny explains, wrapping a bandage around the bruise on his arm. “You might need to cordon off some sections of the ship. The Skitarii left radiation traces everywhere.”

Taeyong grimaces. “Those rad-bullets are going to make my people sick just walking through the hallways. Damned Martians and their tech. Despicable.”

Jaehyun looks at Taeyong, frowning.

“You’re an obvious exception, Jaehyun. I have nothing against you.” The artisan smiles, resuming his examination of the medical supplies before him. Taeyong continues. “Anyway, the remains of the Vanguards were jettisoned off into space before we warped so that’s going to make things a bit easier for us. It’ll be absolute hell to clean up the rest of the traces though. I’m not sure we even have that kind of tech.”

“Maybe you should invest in a new ship,” Ten suggests.

“I’m not going to take that seriously,” Taeyong replies, looking at Ten as if he were stupid. “I’ve been with the _Ardent Rose_ for a long time. I’m not giving her up.”

It’s Ten’s turn to be in disbelief. “Don’t tell me you grew an attachment to your own ship.”

“It’s home,” Taeyong says, quiet and sincere. “For me and three hundred other people. Radiated or not, we stay on it.”

“Suit yourself.”

“So Johnny,” Taeyong continues as Jaehyun waves a bandage in his face. “Tell us about Hito. What should we expect? Jaehyun, put that down, please.”

Jaehyun protests. “But you’re injured.”

Taeyong stares at him before sighing and taking his coat off, revealing dented adamantium plates and bruised skin. Several gashes lined his forearm from the beating the Alphas had subjected him to, and although the bleeding had stopped, they were still crimson and fresh. Taeyong gestures for Johnny to get on with it.

“I guess it’s safe to say that Hito isn’t what you’d expect,” Johnny says, eyes glistening with distant reminiscence. It isn’t an entirely pleasant look. “It almost looks like pre-Imperium Terra. Nature intact, bodies of water unpolluted, atmosphere clear. Most of the population lives in tiny villages. They’re primitive, mostly.”

“Mostly?” Ten asks.

“The order of monks I told you about, they use technology that’s as advanced as what the Imperium has to offer. They protect that knowledge inside a walled city.”

Taeyong hisses as Jaehyun sprays antiseptic onto his wounds. The artisan gently tells him not to recoil. “Will they let us in?”

“They usually demand a piece of advanced technology before granting access to strangers. My men and I back then offered a geller field generator that we salvaged from our spacecraft.”

“We have plenty of advanced and even restricted tech onboard this ship, so that shouldn’t be a problem,” Taeyong says. 

“How about the monks?” Ten asks. “You said that was just a guise. Will they be a problem?”

“That, I’m not sure of. Last time, they were only cordial with us because our goals were aligned. Like I said, they swore to never let the knowledge they guard fall into Imperial hands. I don’t know why, or if there’s a profound reason behind it, but they stick to that pretty tightly. And they’ve done a hellishly good job in doing that if the Imperium still hasn’t gotten their hands on that tech by now, which they haven’t.”

“Better brush up on those diplomatic skills,” Taeyong says. “I am not in the condition to fight highly-trained swordsmen as of the moment.” 

“About that,” Ten starts. Taeyong smiles weakly as Jaehyun finishes bandaging him up. The Lord Inquisitor thanks the artisan quietly. “Can I have a word with you please? Outside.”

Taeyong nods, accepting that there is no meandering his way out of this. 

“I’m worried about you,” Ten says once they’re far enough away.

“You have nothing to be worried about.”

“Bullshit. I’m not stupid, Taeyong. You don’t have to hide things from me.”

“Alright, fine.” Taeyong meets his eyes, and Ten could only see something fragile. “I’m mentally unfit for duty, that’s why they took me off the field.”

“Why?”

Taeyong takes a deep breath.

“My mission with Jaehyun was my last,” he starts bitterly. “After the encounter with the possessed priest, I was never the same. It started with the dreams. Nightmares. I’d see those acolytes burn over and over again, and that priest, standing in the middle of all that destruction, mocking me. Telling me I failed them. He isn’t wrong, I did. But the longer the dreams went on, they changed. The priest started telling me all sorts of things I never should have fallen for. That I’m weak, that I’m degrading. It was pitiful, but unavoidable. All those little things ate away at me and… and here I am. A shadow of my former self, a husk of all I ever was.” 

“You are not any lesser than you were before.”

“Ten, it’s no use,” Taeyong chuckles dryly. “Don’t try to console me, I have no use for it. I appreciate the sentiment though, really. But the life we lead, the life _we_ chose leaves no leeway for matters of the heart like this. Not when so much is on the line. Can’t ever afford a moment of weakness because that might be a bullet in the gun we shoot ourselves with. So I’ll power through, won’t I? Like always did, like I always will. I’ll get you your escape, perhaps even mine, and I’ll see where I could go from there. Until then, no respite. Until then, I can’t falter.”

“You already did,” Ten says reluctantly.

“I did,” Taeyong admits. “And now that I know the feeling, never again.” 

Ten silently wraps his arms around him, and Taeyong welcomes the warmth. 

“I’ll get you out of here if it’s the last thing I do,” Taeyong whispers into Ten’s hair. “This god-awful Imperium will not triumph over us.”

It’s borderline impossible, but Ten always made it a point to exceed expectations. Maybe, just _maybe_ , there’s a chance. It’s almost non-existent, but it’s there. For the first time in his life, Ten finds the beginnings of solid, unwavering faith blooming within him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

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